Inked
by FearandLoathingXIX
Summary: How simply Shinohara broke her heart. She would do anything never to be hurt like this again. The next man to have her heart for his own would have get past the Lioness before he could get to her now, but Shin was never afraid of a good fight.
1. Chapter 1

Remembered how much I like this fandom and this idea. Enjoy, everyone. This has been sitting around forever. I'm a bit facinated with the Yakuza tattoos myself so I thought it might be interesting to explore like this. (They're also kinda badass :P)

* * *

Here she was,Yamaguichi Kumiko, years of her dreams finally cultivated into one glorious moment: Shinohara's kiss.

It was impossible to say it was just like she imagined it, because she'd imagined it so many times that it was a bit of _everything _she'd envisaged, and all she knew was it was… _good_.

"Shinohara-sensei" she murmured in a quick break of their lips; her hands twisted in his shirt collar and fingertips tracing the skin of his neck as their mouths brushed together again, "I lo-"

"Kumiko," he interrupted, pulling away from her with a terrifying clarity in his eyes. "Don't say that."

On the first count she couldn't believe he knew what she was going to say, and on the second she couldn't think of a single reason she couldn't say it: he'd kissed her, that meant he was accepting her feelings, didn't it?

"Wha…why, Shinohara-se…?" she stammered.

"This is…" he looked increasingly unhappy, and Kumiko got that sinking feeling she always felt when someone was about to give her bad news – like when she found out her parents had that accident, or when she found out about Grandpa's illness. She just _knew _something bad was going to come next.

"This is goodbye," he finally whispered, and with a sudden spasm of her hands and legs she lost hold of sensei's jacket and plummeted to the floor. However, before she could hit the floor a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her back onto her feet.

"Kumiko?" He rushed considerately, "are you-?" before he could finish the question she'd ripped her hand away from him and back-pedalled into the nearest wall.

"Don't say that!" she hissed. "_Don't touch me_!" his kind expression shattered like her heart, and he looked to the floor in shame. "Why is it goodbye, Shinohara-sensei? Why is it goodbye?!" her tone rose until she was almost screaming.

"Where are you going?! Don't kiss me and then say things like _that, _like you're going to be leaving me!" As her temper frayed she came away from the wall again and approached him.

"I'm… not really going anywhere, Kumiko," he murmured guiltily, and then flinched as she grabbed him bone-crushingly tight and pulled him to face her; he thought for a moment she was going to kiss him again, but she still couldn't break that barrier and make the first move.

"Then why are you saying goodbye?" she demanded in the vicious snarl of a true Yakuza; unbeknownst to her setting his resolution even more.

"Because this is goodbye… _for us,"_ he said sadly, and then stepped away from her and tided his appearance. "I'm sorry about that kiss… but I just wanted to feel it…_once_." Everything she'd hoped and dreamed of from that moment suddenly came crashing down around Kumiko.

"What do you mean, sensei?" she asked much more timidly, as she felt a cold sharp pain slide down from her chest into the pit of her belly.

"Because..._Kumiko_... 'w_e' _have no future," he confessed, and as much as she wanted to interrupt and tell him about all her plans, about the house in the suburbs and the children and the Dojo in the back garden… somehow she couldn't manage it.

"Whether you like it or not, you and the man you marry will become the fourth leader of the family," Shinohara said solemnly. "Your Grandpa wants you to be happy and let you tread your own path, but I fear the other members won't be as open-minded when the time comes." Another stone of fear dropped into the pit of her stomach – 'when the time comes' was getting closer and closer now, as her Grandpa grew weaker and his hands shook more with every visit to the hospital. Was this really true? She didn't want to have to think of it.

"That…" she stuttered, "that's… something I'll deal with when it comes." She pleaded with him, "It... it doesn't have to be this wa-"

"No Kumiko," he interrupted. "It does. You are the daughter of a Yakuza, and Yakuza in your heart. The man you marry will take your Grandpa's place…and... that man cannot be me." She felt tears prick the corner of her eyes and begged for the strength not to cry in front of him.

"Why… not…" she whispered, but then as she looked at Shinohara she suddenly knew.

He looked _scared. _Shinohara sensei, for all his skill and ruthlessness in the courtroom, wouldn't run into a warehouse of rival gang-members with nothing but a lead pipe and a war cry (he wouldn't walk out _alive _either, he had no skill in combat).

If he thought someone was wrong then he'd be more likely to talk them down than beat them down, run away than run in to attack – at that moment, when she could suddenly see into his heart; she knew that deep down he was just _scared _of what being the next Kumichou would ask of him.

She'd always thought he was brave, but in that light she realized that he was just being a...a _coward_about it.

"You fucking coward," She suddenly snarled, Yakuza voice at its very thickest. "Afraid of messing with a Yakuza kid? You're the _ fucking _same at the rest of them."

"Kumiko…" Shinohara pleaded sensibility, and held up his hands in defence. "It's not like that at all. I've been your family's legal council for years and…" Striding up close to him, Kumko grabbed the collar of his shirt, like she had in passion on minutes ago, and ripped it apart viciously; revealing the expanse of pale and unmarred skin she had lusted over for so long.

"You never truly joined the family!" she spat, and then let him go, shaking her hands as if they were dirtied touching him now. "The men of this family have scars and tattoos to show their bravery and their strength. You, you... _asshole_, kept yourself _just_ clean of us all these years! I used to admire you for it, but now I see that you're just a coward."

"Kumiko!" he tried to raise his voice, but it could not and would not compare to hers. "You are angry and twistin-"

"Fuck off," she said icily. "If I'm a 'Yakuza whether I like it or not', then perhaps I should act more like one." She took a threatening step towards him. "So _fuck off, _Shinohara,before I throw you out." A dead couple of seconds passed as she cracked her knuckles. Shinohara seemed to try and take in the words, and then he silently turned his back and walked away; only pausing at the door so say, "I'm so sorry, Kumiko. Goodbye."

Yamaguichi Kumiko kept her resolve and didn't waver at Shinohara's apology, her heart was steel now, she told herself, and could not be touched by such words.

However, once the latch clicked shut for good, she somehow couldn't help falling to the floor and bursting into tears.

"I'm a Yakuza no matter what, huh?" she sobbed as she stumbled to her room and curled up on her bed, pressing her hands over her eyes and holding a tiny funeral for every future memory she'd built for herself and Shinohara over the years.

"Ojou! I heard yelling, are you-?!" The door burst open and Kyou stood half-clad in the hallway; peering up at him with puffy, red eyes Kumiko heard him yelp with surprise, and then quietly step inside and shut the door behind him. Kyou had been a father… or at least, a big brother, to her over the years, and he'd seen her cry many times before: he knew what to do.

He locked the door so no one else could burst in, and walked tentatively over to the bed where she lay.

"Kumiko-chan…" he said softly, holding out his arms like a big teddy bear. "If you want…" Before he could even finish the sentence she was there, curling up in his arms like a child and sobbing even harder than before. He simply patted her back comfortingly and let her cry, he'd actually heard a bit more more than just yelling, and if Shinohara were ever going to dare showing his face near Ojou again he would see to breaking his bones personally.

He had settled his business with the boss for now; though he'd probably be back again when the bland drudgery of life away from the dangerous Yakuza edges of legality. They would be ready for him, he was sure of that.

"I…(sob)…loved…(sob)…him…(sob)" Kumiko hiccupped and snorted, trails of snot and tears streaking Kyou's torso as his regular breathing soothed her.

"I know, Ojou," he cooed, patting her head and sighing at the little girl she still was. "I know."

After she had calmed down a little more and blown her nose a few times, Kyou got up to leave.

"If you want a drink for your sorrows, you know where we are," he said solemnly as he walked to the door, and as he passed through it she noticed the tattoo spanning his entire back, '_the men of this family have scars and tattoos to show their bravery and strength'_ that was what she had said to Shinohara. She was just as good as the men of this gang, if not better, wasn't she?

"If I'm Yakuza… perhaps I could show it as well…" she murmured to herself; Tetsu and Minoru would get tattoos when they were properly initiated into the gang as full members, but wasn't she already the Ojou – 'heir' to her Grandfather's legacy 'whether she wanted it or not' according to Shinohara – she had nothing to wait for, surely?

It had yet to be confirmed that she _would _inherit the leadership, as they had yet for any of the branch-members to dare crossing her Grandfather, but the words had hurt her and suggested things she already thought.

When Kyou or Grandpa went to the baths or walked down the street with his tattoo visible, everyone _knew _he was Yakuza, so no one approaching him could be ignorant of that… people were straight with you if they knew you were from _that _kind of family. No shit from anyone. She ought to be proud of belonging to such a respected and fearsome family – why shouldn't she show that?

She thought for a delirious moment that if _she _could walk down with a proud mantle of ink then everyone would _know _she was a Yakuza, and then the only people who would talk to her would be the ones who didn't care – no one would _dare _do what he did to her again.

She thought about how glorious it would be to have a beautiful painted back like her grandfather, or the wives of other gang members – and what would Shinohara make of it? If she acted quickly he could at least see the bandages before he went... he would ask what she did, and she could shrug and say in an offhand way 'oh, it's just the tattoo', and he'd be so surprised, and she'd throw his words back at him and he'd realize what he lost.

Her plan was enthusiastic, if not sensible, but there was one fatal flaw with it.

She had absolutely no idea how to do it. The men had never made it clear. She could get her back tattooed, but what would be the design? Where would she get it done?

She started spending every spare minute of her time time visiting salons and looking through designs, but she couldn't find anything that inspired her, gave her that 'fuck you Shinohara' feeling of victory. Her family left her to it, assuming she was just doing what she needed to move on from having her heart broken like that.

Until she was given some artwork by 3D.

3D rarely attended art lessons, but every once in a while the teacher would hand over a folder of things they'd actually done – usually homeroom teachers put up the pieces around the classroom, but the gesture was only a token for 3D; most of the 'art' that Yankumi received from her class was explicit and contained various styles of nudity or weaponry: often both. Particularly creative boys would create scenes of nudity _out of _weapons.

Except for one piece. It was a single picture, because it was from the only two art lessons that Sawada Shin ever attended.

She wasn't sure if it was because he was trying to be innovative, or if he was too lazy to get the right colour, but it was a lion and a lioness copied out of a magazine. A _red _lion and lioness.

Maybe he had been thinking about her family's aggravating moment of awarding him the title 'Young master Red Lion', as if he were going to become one of them some day, when he drew it, but suddenly she knew what she wanted.

"A lion?"

"A lion_ess_," she repeated carefully. "I am a girl, a lioness is surely more appropriate than a lion?" The squat man scratched his head and leafed through some pages in his pattern book.

"I don't got any lionesses, Ojou," he said sourly. "Lions, yes, but no lion_ess_."

"You know it is the lioness who does all the hunting on the African savannah?" she said formally, her teacher's tone sharp and authoritarian. "The _lion_ is a lazy _slacker_ who suns his belly all day and makes the women do all the work. As usual." She snorted derisively. "On that note, I think I will take my business elsewhere. Good day."

She then spent a good hour searching the city for a _female_ tattoo artist in order to make good on her word, and on her way collected an armful of animal books with pictures of lionesses in them to combat the lack of patterns existing. The woman she finally located wasn't too far afield, and was incredibly helpful; she, knowing who Oujo was, worked painstakingly with her on the design individually, until they had created something truly beautiful and one-of-a-kind.

A young lioness jumping for the kill would span most of her back, but, although her teeth and claws were sharp and bared, the eyes of this predator were calm and piercing. On the back of Kumiko's neck a blazing African sun would burn, and then more traditional Japanese emblems would reach over her shoulders and down her spine, filling in the gaps left by the lioness. It was truly awing.

"How long will it take?" Kumiko asked – she knew these things could take years, depending on the pattern.

"Normally I'd say a month or so," the elderly woman answered. "But, as this has to be very special, Oujo, I'm sayin' two, maybe three if y'can't take longer sessions."

"I can," Yankumi answered eagerly, not _quite _realizing what she was getting herself into. "When can you begin?"

"Eh eh? You _are_ eager, Oujo," the woman remarked. "Do you not want to think about it some before you start?"

"I've thought," she replied. "I made up my mind. Time is of the essence. _When can you start?" _the woman looked at a sun-bleached clock on the wall.

"Well...now, I guess," she said, with a thin grin. "Jus' let me boil a kettle."

Yamaguichi Kumiko thought that she was as tough as they came, in her own honest opinion. Still, she had not expected it to _hurt _as much as it did, or for it to bleed as much or make such disturbing sounds as the needle pierced her skin hundreds of times over and over.

Even then, she hadn't realized that it would not just be a temporary pain – even when it was done, the tattooed area would burn and bleed and weep; her dressing got stuck to the cracking skin, and her mood deteriorated as more and more of her back erupted into a slow-healing wound that was reopened on a just-less-than-daily basis.

But it was _there _and she'd done it. On her back the design that she'd seen drawn so beautifully on paper was being etched onto her own skin, and she felt she was closer to her true self than she'd ever been. In letting go of Shinohara she'd let go of the last remnant of her young naivety.

She realized that her decisions in life would not be as simple as what to eat for lunch in the school canteen, or even what to do about her next lot of rowdy and rebellious teenagers. They would affect her family – the people she cared about most – and the future of the Kuroda family, and she would have to make things right by them. It was the least she could do, considering what they'd done for her.

That was why she was getting this tattoo; she was accepting that weight that rested on her shoulders. She was ready to take it on herself, to step into the lineage her grandfather and parents had given her.

Her family noticed what was happening, but said nothing; she was irritable enough as it was, being in the process of tattooing didn't improve her temperament at _all_. She would say something when she was ready, and they were all secretly eager to see what she had chosen for a design. They didn't question her reasons, and secretly Kyou and the rest of the extended family were pleased and excited to hear of the Ojou stepping up to the mark in this way. Perhaps there was hope for her after all.

Unfortunately, her students weren't so understanding.

"Oi! Yankumi!" Ucchi taunted, when Yankumi had snapped at them a little more than usual because it felt like her lioness had _real _claws instead of inked ones today. "What's pissin' you off so much?!"

"NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!" she roared, and even Shin woke up – he _needed _his sleep, Kyo had insisted on dragging him out last night for some reason (apparently there was a 'raging dragon' in the house and he couldn't stay there) and he hadn't slept in fourteen hours.

"Keep it down, Yankumi," he moaned quietly, opening his eyes a crack to watch her scolding Ucchi fearlessly. However, she was moving funny today, stiff or something, like she was injured.

He was pretty sure she hadn't been up to anything last night; he generally heard any happenings from the Kuroda family (seeing as they were slowly but surely drawing him into it), so the fact that she was moving like she was injured was interesting.

He was even more interested when she bent over, to pick up a book Ucchi had thrown at her, and he saw some kind of white plaster down the back of her collar. She _was _hurt.

When that class ended, after what had felt like a lifetime of maths to student and teacher alike, Shin remained at his desk, which he frequently did when he had something to say to her.

"Oi, Yankumi," he announced as she tried to follow the rest of 3D out of the room. "I'm waiting for you, you know."

"What is it, Shin?" she snapped; no-nonsense attitude firmly in place. "I've got an appointment, so don't waste me time."

"What's wrong with your back?" he asked, and her face froze up.

"Uh.... _nothing!_" she yelped, reverting to her old awkward and poorly-lying self for a change. "Nothing at all! I slept funny last night and it's a little stiff... yes, yes that's what it is."

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"Then you don't mind me going along with you to this 'appointment'?" he inquired – guessing (accurately) that it would have something to do with her strange behaviour.

"It's... it's not for someone like you!" she said hurriedly; non-Yakuza had no need to be around tattoo parlours like hers.

"Like me?" he echoed, one eyebrow raised.

"Uh... yes... a... boy," she stuttered. "A boy. Yes, I'm going for a... _ladies_ appointment."

She couldn't sound more unconvincing if she tried.

"Is that so?" he said sarcastically, and shrugged. "All right then, Yankumi." For a moment she thought she had got away with it, but then Shin added, "I'll have to dress as a girl."

"Oh yes, then I suppose it would be ok–WHAT?!" she screeched: she thought she knew Shin quite well... but she didn't know about _that_.

"It's a good thing you aren't going to a 'ladies' appointment," he said caustically, "or I might actually have had to do that." He stared at her. "If you don't tell me now I'll just ask Kyou tonight." He needed to get his trousers back from his place anyway (it was a long and ironically non-explicit story).

"I...I...I..." Yankumi stammered, feeling her excuses crumble. They never did last well with Shin. "Why are you hanging around him anyway?!" she spluttered. Kyou would not betray how she had cried to Shin, but he might let the boy know what was going on underneath her jacket. He seemed dangerously attached to her student and Yankumi worried that before long she'd have even more of a troublemaker on her hands – the last thing someone smart and resourceful like Shin needed was _opportunities._

"_He _hangs around me," Shin replied uninterestedly. "Anyway. What's wrong with you recently? And if whatever you're going to is the reason for it, why are you still going?"

However, there was a small, weak part of her wanted someone to keep her company, to distract her while the artist hammered that needle and ink into her skin. She couldn't tell her family or Shinohara, not until it was finished. She wanted to present them with the finished project; not the bloody in-between.

Shin could do that, couldn't he?

She heaved an over the top sigh, and crossed her arms.

"No!" she barked. "Go home and do your homework!" Seeing he was going to get nowhere with this, Shin scowled and stood up from his desk with an irate pound of his fist on the desk.

"Fine!" he snapped, throwing her own foul behaviour back at her. "Then I'll find out _myself!_"

"Don't you _dare_!" she hissed back, feeling her inhibitions loosen under the pressure of her own temper. "Stay away from my private life!"

"I've had plenty to do with it before," Shin said coldly. "I'll do what I please."

In a few quick strides Yankumi was in front of him and had his collar tightly in her hand – just as she had with Shinohara less than a month ago.

"I'm _warning_ you, Sawada," she snarled. "If you know what's good for you you're gonna keep that mouth _shut_." Shin stared back at her emotionlessly, her words barely even registering to him. He wasn't afraid of her; _that _was the problem.

Without another word Yankumi let go of Shin and stormed off, but as she lay there later on the tattooing bed biting her lower lip, she wished that she had let him come along just so there was someone she could _abuse _as this pain bit into her again and again. The linework was finished now, so the much more intense filling process had begun.

It had started affecting her sleep cycles because she could no longer sleep on her back, and not long after that run in with Shin her Grandpa sat her down and made a very vague speech about 'doing the right thing' and 'being free to make her own destiny' then gave her a herbal tea he claimed had 'really helped him through it', but when pressed would not say what 'it' was, just that he 'was very proud of her, no matter what she chose'.

A few more weeks after this Kumiko's Lioness was almost complete – the rest of the work could be added to gradually, and once she had healed from the main bulk of the work. Shoulders, lower back, little finishing touches; they could all come in smaller sections and shorter sessions. For now it was enough that the main piece was done: the Lioness; fury and beauty existing side by side. Just like her lion when Kumiko pounced she would be accurate and deadly, but never excessive – like her lion brave and strong, proud of herself and her heritage, and never, _ever_ ashamed.

* * *

Second part will be on its way! Two-part piece at least! We still have to find out how everyone reacts, Shin most of all. Plus I've got more I want from this, but I honestly have no idea how this half is it's been so long I have no perspective on it. So gimmie a line to let me know what you think :D XXX


	2. Chapter 2

Woo next installation! I was going to have this as a two part but seeing how I feel about it I might push onwards, there is still some more to squeeze out of the idea/story.

And if she reads this, Dark Subtext I'm sorry to have offended you and hope you won't put this story off just because I happen to be a really touchy bitch about some things. I've even added information in this chapter from things that you told me in your review. Anyway if you ARE reading this I apologise and hope we can bury the hatchet for the sake of fanfiction :D

Anyway, to the rest of y'all ENJOY THE STORY.

* * *

It had been a long day, but it was a special one for Kumiko Yamaguchi: at last her Lioness backpiece was completed. The entire irezumi may not have been finished, as there was still much to add around her back, shoulders, her neck, waist and thighs, but the main design was completed, and she had never been gladder for something in her life.

She did not regret a single moment of it; the process of choosing and enduring this tattoo had helped her let go of Shinohara once and for all – the pain on her skin helped relieve the pain in her heart, and the more her irezumi took shape the better she felt about it. She had never needed him to be happy, her life was perfect just how it was. She had her family and her students, she was cared for and had dear friends. She was even sorting out that clown Kudou into a half-decent person, so she wasn't bored at home either. Her cup of life was full to the brim.

The closer to completion her backpiece was the better she felt about it – everything seemed right; it was as if she were claiming her own body with the ink being worked into it, writing who she was and what she was in great bright colours across her own skin. She _was _the Lioness she wore, and for that she would never give her heart away to a man again.

When she was about ready to wear her newly inked back completely bare of any dressing or protective, she arranged for the family all to be together that night; a party of sorts, although not for any specific event, but she made it clear that she was ready to reveal what she had been secretly working on for all this time.

That day at school was the only day of the week Shin was actually in attendance, and although he had been a little icy around her for a while after their bust up about what she was doing to her back, they seemed just about back to normal now.

All the stories she was hearing about the 'Young Red Lion' were troubling enough for her; she tried to convince Kyou and the others to stop taking him out but they simply refused to do it on account of the money he made for them gambling. Not to mention he'd apparently intervened in a fight that broke out in one of the gambling houses and saved the owners a lot of trouble – and of course everywhere he went his name followed, _Red Lion, Red Lion,_ as if he weren't recognisable by his flaming red 'mane' of hair. He went and got a _name _amongst these people.

At least she could keep him out of the Yakuza world so long as she was his teacher. Once he graduated though, she had no idea which way he would turn – he could do great things in any field he chose, but he had no passion for any subject. It was enough of a battle simply trying to get him to fill in university applications, let alone take them seriously.

However on this momentous day Yankumi put it out of her mind, as she had much more exciting things planned for later on. Not to mention Wakamatsu had ordered in a whole crate of sake and various foreign liquors for the occasion, and Tetsu made a _mean _Singapore Sling.

Showering later that night, so that her skin would look its best, she dressed in loose pants and a low backed top, exposing a good deal of the new tattoo but still covering her front modestly. She put on a jumper over this, and then headed out into the main room where Kyou and her Grandfather were already cracking into the sake.

"Sit down and toast with us, Kumiko," Ryuichiru said warmly, a somewhat knowing glance passing between him and Kyou. Soon they were joined by Wakamatsu, his wife, Tetsu, Minoru and even Kudou was allowed out of the cellar to join them in the revelry. Cheers and drinks were shared all around, until a little way into the evening when Kumiko felt she had loosened up enough.

"It's a little warm in here," she said, and then awkwardly removed her jumper. A stern glance or two from her Grandfather ensured that no one jumped around or rushed to gawk at her, and she was met only with a circle of only mildly interested smiles and another toast.

"To Kumiko!" everyone cheered, and one by one throughout the evening everyone got a chance to see what design she had chosen for herself and if their Ojou had really done such a wonderful thing.

"It's beautiful," Wakamatsu's wife commented at some point. "You really look fantastic, Ojou."

Kumiko smiled bashfully and took another drink from her ever-refilling cup.

"I must ask, what made you think of the lioness? It's so powerful and moving," Wakamatsu's wife continued, and this was overheard by Kyou and Wakamatsu himself. Kyou immediately burst into a great peal of laughter, almost toppling his drink.

"What do you mean _what_?" he chuckled, "Surely you mean _who_?" By now everyone else had listened in, and at this a good amount of sniggering and whispering took place.

"Huh?!" Kumiko herself yelped. "What are you talking about? It was a picture my class drew in art. That's what gave me the idea!"

At this a curious look settled on Kyou's and everyone else's faces, as if they couldn't believe she was being serious, and also like the were making a connection she herself could not see. She never was _great _at making those kinds of connections.

"Let us say no more of it," Ryuichirou said after an awkward enough pause developed. "The irezumi is a great thing, but Kumiko must still remember that her path is her own to choose."

"I do," she responded. "These marks on my back has helped me return to my path again; to be myself and live the way I want to live." A misty, sentimental look clouded Kumiko's eyes: not exactly uncommon for her. "Everyone... thank you... for being such a wonderful family to me! Kampaii!" With this and a great cheer another toast was taken, while a somewhat inebriated Kudou slumped in a corner out of the action. He had never realized just how much these people could _drink_, and with months without a drop he was already feeling unsteady with just a half of what that woman and her family had gone through.

"I'm jus'... goin' to get som' air..." he slurred, standing up and swaying with his blurred perceptions.

"Ohohohohoh, Kudou you drunkard!" Kumiko chortled; everyone was too merry and not concerned with what their latest live-in was up to that they did not notice him stumbling out of the front door into the streets. Not even _Kudou _knew he'd got there; it was not an intent to escape he carried, he was just blind drunk.

Shops closed for the day he did not see many faces on the street – none that would recognise him at least – or so he thought until in his aimless, random wanderings he bumped into a couple of familiar faces.

"Kudou?" a pair of unwanted but unfortunately recognisable guys chimed, and when he managed to focus his vision he identified the reviled Sawada Shin and... another Sawada Shin . Just his fucking luck.

"What are you doing out here?" the Shins questioned. "Shouldn't you be in jail or something?"

"Wors'," Kudou slurred. "Kuroda 'ouse. The'y work me lik' a dog." He rubbed a hand over his face and repressed the urge to throw up begging his double vision to go away.

"What? You what? Kuroda? You're staying with Yankumi?" Shin said quick as a shot – he had heard _nothing _of this little arrangement. Kudou living in the _same house_ as Yankumi? That just wasn't right (in his mind at least).

"Yeh'" She gon' messe' up her bak'n'all," Kudou muttered.

"What?" Shin questioned.

"Mess' up her back!" Kudou snapped, and then gesturing clumsily with his hands he tried to demonstrate what he meant. "Tha' lady... fuckin'... inked it all up n'shit..."

"_What_?" Shin echoed blankly, completely at a loss as to what the sounds coming out of Kudou's mouth meant.

"Yeh! She got fukkin' _tattooh'!_" he exploded, and then his stomach exploded up into his mouth, and he was violently sick. Onto Shin. Just _his _luck.

Giving out a very irritated groan, Shin grabbed Kudou by the shoulder and attempted to steer him back in the direction he came from. If anyone had got him this drunk, it would be the Kuroda family; Kyou alone consumed enough to send a normal man to his grave most nights. That and he felt just a _little _bit of sympathy for him, after all this drunken wreck had been him many times before, even the throwing up on someone else part.

"You came from the Kuroda place?" Shin affirmed, wondering what exactly his intentions were in doing this.

"Yeh. I sed already didn' I?" Kudou moaned, clutching his stomach with one hand. "Got me und'r lock'n'key. Lady say shez straightn' me out..."

Although Kudou looked _far _from straight at this moment, Shin persevered as he had enough unanswered questions about Kudou or what he'd been saying to justify a visit round to Yankumi and her Grandfather. He even had a drunken escapee to return to their fold, to prove at least he wasn't _really _hanging around their general neighbourhood hoping he might run into something interesting happening (as interesting happenings in this area were almost always the result of a Kuroda family member) – even if that _was _what he was sort of doing.

As luck would have it, by the time he managed to drag his sluggish companion all the way he'd stumbled from Yankumi's place they had seemed to notice he was gone, and a great number of drunken voices were screaming his name all around the grounds.

Walking up to the main entrance, he propped Kudou against the doorway and looked inside the main room for someone; Ryuichiru was still indoors, in his weakening health he couldn't do to be chasing around outside in the cold like this anyway.

"Good evening Kumichou, are you perhaps missing someone?" Shin inquired with a smirk, bowing his head first before looking at Ryuichiru.

"Ah! Sawada!" Ryuichiru said brightly. "You haven't found our Kudou have you?" A loud moan and further vomiting sounds outside confirmed this, as well as Tetsu's shouts of disgust as in running towards Kudou to 'apprehend' him he stepped straight in it and nearly fell flat on his back.

"Grandpa! We've found him!" Kumiko burst into the room thirty seconds behind Shin, shouting gleefully.

"I know," her grandfather responded, and then held an arm up to point at Shin. "This young master here has brought him back for us. With a mouthful of air about to thank him for his assistance, it wasn't until she actually looked at him that Kumiko realized it was Shin there, at which point she let her breath out suddenly and almost sprayed spit in his face.

"Shin?!" she yelped like a dog that had its tail stepped on. "What are you doing here?!"

"I was in the area and Kudou threw up on me," Shin explained somewhat irately. "He said he was living here now. I was finding out if this was true."

"That is true, he is Kumiko's new problem child," Ryuichiru interjected merrily, finding the events of the night even more amusing than he had foreseen.

"Eeeh? He was sick on you?!" Kumiko gasped, and then looking down noticed the lower half of Shin's pants and shoes looking somewhat worse for wear.

"Ahh, that is terrible, most terrible," Ryuichiu mused with a rather suspicious air of hyperbole around him. "Kumiko, take Sawada here and let him borrow some of our clean things. Kudou is our responsibility so we must amend for his mistakes."

Still initially in shock at seeing Shin like this and so suddenly, Kumiko remained speechless, but in a show of some basic body control being retained she managed to march stiffly to show Shin the way further into the house. He followed in silence too, but his eyes did not miss the new colourful adornment to her back. So Kudou's drunken ramblings _were _as insane as they sounded.

So it was that the moment she had led him into a room he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her around to face him.

"What on earth is _that_ thing?!" he demanded, pointing at the obvious area in question.

"What do you mean?" she feigned innocently.

"Don't give me that, when did you get something like that done?" he snapped.

"It's none of your business, _Shin_," she said just as viciously in return. "It is my body."

"You got a _full_ tattoo, Yankumi?" he said in exasperation. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking it was high time I accepted what I am," she shot back sternly. "I am Yakuza in my blood and my heart, and no matter what I do I can never escape that. It is time I lived up to my responsibilities to the family and stopped denyin--"

At this point she was broken off from her train of speech by Shin grabbing her shoulder tightly in his free hand.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he interrupted. "This isn't you talking, Yankumi. Since when did you let your family affect who you are?"

"It's something I realized..." she said slightly weakly, only to be spoken over again.

"It sounds like something someone _told _you," he accused. "Sounds like a certain Lawyer to me." With this Yankumi pushed Shin's hands off her roughly and took a good step backwards.

"Don't talk about him! He has _nothing _to do with this!"

"Don't be so ridiculous," said Shin sharply. "That is exactly the sort of thing _he _would say and don't deny it!"

"He said it because it is true!" she protested.

"Of course it isn't!" Shin countered, biting at his words hard like a particularly vexed dog. "You don't have to listen to him; he's not _always_ right you know."

"He's a rat and a coward," she said offhandedly, "but... he made me realize a few things about myself. Don't try to tell me what I've done is wrong, Shin," she threatened. "This tattoo is who I am. If you have a problem with that you can fuck off just like he did." At this, contrary to what she expected, Shin laughed at her.

"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you?" he jeered. "Don't compare me to _that _guy for one minute."

"Why not? You're all too scared to face the facts; you can't handle the fact that I'm..."

"Don't finish that, Yankumi," Shin said coolly, a very calm look dominating his previous anger. "Not all men are scared of you." Now it was her turn to laugh scornfully.

"Don't talk crap," she scorned. "Of course..."

Now, with an arrogant scowl, Shin pulled up one of the sleeves of his jumper and twisted his bicep toward her. At first shocked and flustered by this action, Kumiko's surprise at his action lost out to her surprise at the neat characters dotted along his upper arm – small enough to be inconspicuous, but it was easy to make out the meaning. _Red Lion_, it said, in precise and artistic kanji up Shin's arm.

"Not _everone_ is scared of your family," he said calmly. "And you're not the only one to get a tattoo. I just try to be a bit more _subtle _about it."

"Well talk about the pot calling the kettle black!" Yankumi screamed. "When did _you _get that damn work done."

"Months ago," he retorted. "A conclusion to a night out with your second-in-command. He had _Naraikira _do that, you know," he boasted, and she knew why – Naraikira was the master who had tattooed her Grandfather and Kyou. This really was, as far as Yankumi could see, the last straw.

"You are NOT going to become part of this clan, Sawada!" she screamed at him. "They might be indulging you in this way out of their own delusion, but you are NOT the Young Master Red Lion, and you never WILL be! ALSO...! You will NOT be the 4th head to this family either! So STOP making people think you are!"

To this, Shin did nothing but let the corner of his mouth lift into a thin smirk.

"Is that so?" he said innocently.

"YES!" Yankumi barked.

"Then explain what you've done to your back,"

"What?! We've been over this before!" she snapped.

"_Yankumi!_" Shin interjected loudly. "You got a _Lioness." _He had seen enough of her design to recognise what the main creature was right away, and he still couldn't believe what he saw.

"What does that have to do with anything?" she snorted. "If anyone wants to get to me now, they are going through _her _first."

"But Yankumi," Shin proposed suavely, "who else would be with a Lioness but a Lion?"

"Whaa?" she responded in confusion, and then Shin suddenly stepped close to her again and lifted her chin up in his hand to face him. When his face was merely centimetres from hers the final puzzle piece finally clicked into place in Kumiko's head, and she suddenly realized what everyone had meant earlier by '_who not what_'.

Lioness, Lion – how had she not seen that before?

"Shin!" she rushed, his fingers still lifting her face upwards to meet his gaze. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"Oh really?" he said softly, his warm and flirtatious side coming out – the one he'd sprung on her the night of the fireworks festival and a few times since then. "They why else did you have yourself tattooed as my mate?"

"I...I...I..." she stammered, the room suddenly feeling a lot more closed in and stuffy than it had been ten seconds ago. Now she realized what everyone else had thought, and why wouldn't they? What on earth had she been thinking to overlook something like that?! "Shin," she said breathily, "I..."

Before she got any further than 'I', however, Shin had closed the last space between them and drawn her into a kiss. It was not long, or particularly passionate, but as he pulled away again it seemed to destroy any argument or coherent thing Yankumi had to say to him.

"Before you say anything, I want to say something first," he said quietly, a slight blush tingeing his own face at the boldness of his actions. "You made up your mind about Shinohara, so I have nothing to hold back on anymore. I said I would wait until graduation, but I never expected this to happen either... Yankumi... I... I don't care about your family or your tattoo or any of that, I don't even care that you're still my teacher for the next few weeks... I've...I ...I want you. I have for a long time too, so don't try to tell me it's a crush either. I don't care what happens in the future, if you inherit the Kuroda leadership or stay a teacher or _both_, even if you run off to join the circus. Anything that happens I'll deal with it then. Right now all I want is..."

His words petered off, and as if to revive his capacity to confess he reached out with both hands and guided her face up to kiss him again. Yankumi was amazed by how much of what he was feeling she could feel through Shin's kiss – even with Shinohara she had not felt such intense desperation and longing for her.

"I want to be able to say you are mine." He spoke so softly that unless they were in this tight lovers' pose she would not be able to hear him. "It doesn't even have to be now," he rushed, obviously fearing she would reject him on the basis of being a teacher and student or anything else she could think of. "Just give me a chance."

"Shin...?" Yankumi said, part confusion and part flash-blindness from what he'd just sprung on her; this kiss and his hands holding her not out of restraint or friendship but for romance and passion. She felt her tattoo tingling on her back; her mark of her own heritage and independence, but now also of Shin? It was, she remembered, Shin's drawing that gave her the idea in the first place, but from nothing but her own stupidity she had failed to see that connection between the beautiful image covering her back and the small unassuming kanji dotted up his arm.

"Yes?" he probed, unsure as to what her reaction would be – she could still step back and knock him out completely, but at least he'd go knowing he said what he'd wanted to say since the Fireworks Festival.

"You... you still have sick on your pants..." she muttered lamely, and with it Shin chuckled and pressed another chaste kiss against her forehead.

"I better take them off then," he said perversely, and smirked as he felt Yankumi stiffen up completely.

"WELL YES I SUPPOSE SO there are things in the drawers help yourself I'll just wait outside!" she rushed almost all in one long continuous word and then dashed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her and leaning against a wall in the hallway, gasping for air and wondering just what had _happened _in there.

Shin emerged a little while after in a pair of her loose traditional-style pants and bare feet; he looked a little sheepish, but his carefully-engineered flirtatious side reared its head again when he saw the look of confusion and mortification in Yankumi's face.

"They suit me, don't you think?" he teased, and then looking around him added, "then again this whole place suits me somewhat. I'm sure I could feel very at home in here one day."

"As if!" Yankumi insisted fiercely, but Shin only grinned at her and in walking back towards the room in which the festivities had recommenced, he placed his hand on her lower back to usher her along.

"Lioness my ass," he chuckled in his smooth-talking, suave way. "You're just a kitten, really."

"What?! Well _kitten _this!" she retorted, swinging her arm around to punch him in the arm; however, Shin was too quick for her and dodged, then with her own momentum from the playful punch he spun her around and pressed her back against the wall. Pushing the wall up against her still rawly tattooed skin caused her to cry out a little, which she knew Shin would not ignore.

"Oh did I hurt you?" he taunted. "I'm sorry." She couldn't say that she was surprised what followed next was another kiss, but she was a little overwhelmed by the increased intensity with which he kissed her. So far she had not really responded to him because it had all been too quick and sudden to respond, but now Shin drew things out a little and gave her the chance to choose to do something back or not.

Was it really a good idea? Here she was, kissing a student in her own home while wearing a tattoo that sort of linked her to him permanently. The last time she had kissed a man it had led to her heart being broken, but whereas with Shinohara the kiss had symbolised the end of the future, with Shin this was _proposing_ possible futures to her. Could she really let a student court her? Even if they waited until after graduation, there would still be bad talk about it, and what about _his _future?

"You're thinking too much," Shin commented as he broke from her lips momentarily, his mouth set in an unconscious grin. "Stop thinking about it, Yankumi, just do whatever you want to." Almost the polar opposite to Shinohara, really, wasn't he? Whereas her first love had told her there were things she could not do or could not be, and that he could never be with her because of the future he felt would come of it, Shin stopped all speculation about any of that. He insisted on the here and now; what comes will come, and he said before that he'd deal with whatever it was whenever it came. No use in fearing what you don't know yet, she supposed.

So she took the moment and freed it of any consequences or considerations, and she realized that she _wanted _Shin to do this to her, and she was excited to think that Shin could possible love her. Shin! The boy that women _and _men wanted, who was strong and brave and _ingeniously_ clever and never backed out of a honest fight. Who made her blush with just a few words and protected her and seemed to act like if _he _wasn't there to keep an eye on her no one else was good enough; who was standing here offering up his heart for the taking, just as she had done with Shinohara.

Who she didn't want to lose and had actually been fearing would never see her again after graduation. Whose very _insignia _she now wore on her own skin, and she felt fine about that. Better than fine, even.

In a moment she answered his request and kissed him back herself; it was just too easy to do, and too tempting to resist. Then _just _as his mouth opened a little and she felt his tongue reaching out to graze against hers, he suddenly and dramatically pulled away.

"That'll do," he said coolly, a very content and sastified look being worn upon his face: he had his confirmation now, and that was all he needed. "The others will be missing your presence."

The moment they stepped back into the main room, it was not Kumiko who was greeted but Shin; now repositioned as he had before with a hand on the small of her back.

"Young Master!" the men chorused as he entered the room. "Did you really bring Problem-Child Kudou back to us?" Shin nodded, and then after a little round of thanks and further toasts, he withdrew his hand from her back to join everyone around the table for a drink.

If anyone suspected what had happened between him and Kumiko, they said nothing; although a sparkle of plotter's glee could be seen in her Grandfather's eye. After all, he didn't really fancy seeing anyone other than Shin take over his Legacy once he was gone now – marrying his granddaughter to do it was just an added bonus.

Besides, _she _was the one who went out and tattooed herself as the future wife of the 'Red Lion' in the first place. _He _was just interpreting what he saw before him – _like _that possessively placed hand that Sawada had on Kumiko's back when they re-entered the room. Kyou already spoke of him as a close friend, and other groups already seemed to have accepted him as the next in line to the succession.

Yes, it could be said that everything was falling into place. Ryuichiru smiled, and took another drink; he knew his health was failing him, but now at least, he could relax and enjoy life without worrying who was going to look after everyone when he was gone.

At the end of the night, Shin made his excuses and insisted that he go home instead of spend the night as everyone else wanted him to; he wouldn't yield, in part because he did not want to have to try to sleep drunk and horny with Yankumi under the same roof but at the same time completely unreachable. That was one temptation he could life _without _for the moment.

So he made his excuses and bade his goodbyes, letting Yankumi walk him to the gate, albeit a little unsteady on her feet.

"Goodnight then," he said warmly, holding her arm in his as they walked towards the front entrance.

"You's being' very proper," Yankumi commented drunkenly, a large grin on her face as she huddled against his arm for warmth.

"I have to be," he replied. "One wrong step and I might wake up dead," he remarked, and before she could think about responding they were at the gate, where he kissed her goodbye casually, as a friend might.

"Nite' Shiiin'," Yankumi said dopily, and with a weak grin Shin ruffled her hair and laughed to himself.

"Goodnight, _Kumiko_," he responded, hugging her so that his lips pressed against her temple; perhaps indicating a little more than friendship going on below the surface, but at the same time restrained and platonic, and then he let go of her and strolled off into the night. "See you at school!"

"Byeeeeeeee!" Kumiko said as she waved, until suddenly those last four words hit her. "Wait, school? AH! School!!!"

What on earth was she going to do in class NOW?! She hadn't even thought of that. Rushing back into the house, she tripped over Kudou passed out across the doorway and nearly felt straight into Wakamatsu's lap.

"Steady there, Ojou," he laughed, helping her up the right way and offering yet another drink. "You've had more than enough excitement for tonight already, I reckon."

"Ye... yes well I 'spose... HEY!" she yelled. "Whas' that me'nt to mean?!"

"_Ooooh Red Lion, I love you!" _Tetsu suddenly interjected in a falsetto voice, imitating Kumiko's falsely assumed confession.

"STOP THAT!" Kumiko screamed, launching for Tetsu and attempting to give him a beating; in the end needing to be sedated with another drink and a promise that no one would say the words 'Red' or 'Lion' for the rest of the night.

* * *

Woo! I'm a bit new back to this whole writing thing, so let me know what you think of the chapter in a review!


	3. Chapter 3

Re-reading the manga and just couldn't resist picking this up again. Oooooooh boy do I ever love this manga.

* * *

Yankumi found it impossibly difficult to fall asleep over the weekend after Shin had not just confessed his intention to make her his own, but had also _repeatedly _kissed her in a way that still made her insides flutter to remember.

How was she to act around him now? Hadn't she given acknowledgement, if not _encouragement_, to his intentions? Had she not realized at long last that her new Irezumi symbolically suggested that she was going to become Shin's 'partner' and possibly... dare she think it... _wife_?!

It made enough good sense to pair lions with lionesses, but if that lioness was your teacher that was a more awkward issue entirely. She hadn't even _begun _to think about how she might possibly feel towards Shin in a serious way; after all, she had not really thought of himlike _that _before, although it was true that Shinohara had now left her, so her heart was free as a bird.

Could she let it be pounced upon and devoured by a Lion so soon? … She was... she was beginning to take this metaphor a little too far.

In and out of sleep, she tossed and turned, drunken dreams at first teasing her into thinking he was there, reaching out and touching her while she tried to sleep; she swore she felt his breath on her neck and his hands through her hair, but every time she sat up and looked around she had no company bar her own intoxication. Was it wishful dreaming or some kind of cruel nightmare? She simply did not know any more.

As it was, her lack of sleep meant that come Monday Morning Kumiko was little more than a zombie with few basic motor functions and a hangover. She poured coffee on her cereal and then left for work in her pyjama bottoms, and only realised when she got to school and Fujiyama screamed upon seeing her.

"You shall have to wear my spare skirt!" she clucked sternly when Yankumi simply mumbled 's'alrit'me'n'd'yablaar' in response to becoming aware of her being only half-dressed. A trip to the staff room and a hastily adjusted skirt later, Yankumi wandered into her form room with a very limp 'good morning' and then proceeded to sit down at one of the desks in the front row, staring at the teacher's desk bemusedly.

"Yankumi what the fuck are you doing?" one of the students demanded.

"Where's the homeroom teacher?" she mumbled in a voice utterly detached from the rest of her mind. "She's gonna be late if we're all here before her..."

"YOU'RE the homeroom teacher!" three or so students bellowed in unison, and that seemed to be enough to shock Yankumi into reluctantly assuming her role.

That said it didn't mean that she didn't try to teach Geography in Maths or send everyone off to lunch at 11 'o clock. The only benefit that could possibly be perceived is that to a large part she did not register Shin's presence in her classroom, except towards the end of the day when she realized that he'd been sitting quietly in the back row all morning and she'd simply not noticed. That was a good thing, wasn't it?

Perhaps she could just pretend that nothing had ever happened with Shin, that he had not confessed to her or held her in his arms and _definitely _not kissed her in any way, shape or form on any number of occasions. Yes, as her head cleared a little more, she resolved that she could simply pretend nothing had happened with Shin _at all_.

Although pretending that her tattoo was not somewhat symbolically attached to him would be a little more challenging, she was sure she could pull it off.

She felt more at ease with herself now, and when class finally ended Shin was still fast asleep – she could escape now without his even being conscious!

"Uuuuurrrr..." came an unfortunate groan from Shin's direction just as Yankumi was preparing to dash out of the door. "Hold it, Yankumi," he growled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "I can sleep at home," he observed sarcastically, "I was waiting for _you_."

Instantly Yankumi's face flushed; in spite of how much she did not want it to, and she went bright red in a matter of seconds. Her escape was foiled _and _he had taken to calling her name like _that,_ as if they were boyfriend-girlfriend. Which the were NOT.

"Oh yes?! Why would that be?!" she said woodenly, her words sounding awkward and forced, as they in fact were.

Shin did not answer her, but instead stood up and wandered up from the back of the classroom; Yankumi had already explored the idea of just running away from him, but she reasoned that it would not help anything in the greater scheme of things and he'd _probably_ catch her anyway.

Staying firmly behind her desk in the hopes that Shin would remain firmly on the other side, she tried to occupy an air of coolness and not seem like her heart was trying to crawl down into her toes and hide.

Still Shin said nothing, but instead his eyes slid slowly down past her normal work shirt to the skirt she wore. He stared at it for a few seconds, and then looked back up at her as if to prompt an explanation from her.

"Tired?" he suggested before she could say anything herself.

"A... little..." she replied quietly, each word wholly formed and well thought upon, but as a consequence losing the natural pace and charisma of normal speech.

"Something keeping you up at night?" Shin said cheekily, the intended innuendo not failing to reach Yankumi's notice for once.

"That's enough," she snapped suddenly, her temper fraying and alarm bells ringing in her head. This was all wrong, and she needed to make that clear to him. "Sawada..."

"Yeah?" he interrupted deliberately, hopping up to sit on the corner of her desk and peer at her quizzically.

"I think we need... I mean... I need to..." she stammered. "It's only right that _I_..."

"Geez, what's got into you?" he said with an incredibly false innocence. "I hope you're going to get over this stammering and blushing by graduation."

"Whuu..." this came out as a very underdeveloped grunt of sorts, as if Yankumi's mind couldn't quite keep up with her mouth – or Shin's for that matter.

"It's cute and all, but I'd kind of miss the normal you after a while," Shin continued to tease and taunt, all the while smirking at Yankumi in a very characteristic 'I am making you all schoolgirl-crush on me, and I'm _enjoying _it' sort of way.

"_Shin_, that's enough!" she barked. "I'm your teacher!"

"Not for _that _much longer," he retorted, quick and fierce on the uptake. "I've waited long enough, I can wait some more." He shrugged. "I was just checking up on you."

"I don't need you to check up on me, young man!" she fumed as her face took on another entirely new shade of red.

"Careful what you call me now," he taunted, his grin completely impossible to cover up.

"Shin I'm... I'm... I'm not discussing these things with you!" she squawked, and then turned aside and began to mutter to herself, "Oooh and what will I say at parents' evening now? _Oh yes, Mr. Sawada, your son is a very fine kisser and..._"

"I wasn't expecting you to say anything," Shin replied, "not yet at least." It was now that he reached out and put a finger under her chin, guiding her around to face him. "Although, I'm glad to hear you think that."

In a simultaneous motion, Yankumi knocked Shin's hand away from her face, knocked _him _off the desk he was sitting on and across the classroom, and jumped backwards in the opposite direction herself until she was by the door to the classroom.

Shin dragged himself up from the bookcase he'd been thrown into and dusted himself down.

"Still not pulling your punches, I see," he commented with a suppressed laugh, trotting towards the door without even registering the look of terror in Yankumi's eyes. He passed her in the doorway, and threw a look backwards at her as he walked down the corridor. "Funny," he remarked. "It seems my dirty shoes and pants still seem to be with your family."

He gave her a look that made it unabashedly clear what he was getting at.

"Looks like I'll have to stop by and pick them up," he said confidently, "don't make any plans in the evenings this week." He shot her a wicked look. "You never know when I might turn up."

With that he was gone, leaving Yankumi to hyperventilate and come to terms with the realization that Shin had the ability to make her heart beat so fast she thought it might stop dead. She barely made it home without falling over or getting hit by anything.

True to his word, and without a consideration for the fact that they were still minus two weeks of being only _ex-_teacher and student, Shin kept her on edge all week with alluded threats to showing up in the evening, and then finally made an appearance exactly a week after he had confessed everything.

"Kuuuummiiiikoooooo!" Tetsu came _fluttering _into her room with a smile that was horrifying for a man of his appearance. "You have a _visitorrrr!" _Judging from his tone it could be only _one _person that would set Tetsu off like this, and so it was with a mix of excitement and fright that she raced to the door.

It was him; of _course _it was him, who else would it be?

"Yo," Shin said casually as he leaned against a door post by the hallway, dressed down and even wearing a hat over his usually explosive red hair. "I think I left some of my stuff here last week, Yankumi." He smiled faintly, but she was prepared for this already, and grabbed the already cleaned and sterilised package off a shelf behind her and thrust it into his hands.

"There you go!" she barked. "Nice seeing you!"

Shin slowly looked through the things, and then began to shake his head. He clicked his tongue a few times, and then said, "No, there seems to be something missing here."

"What? There's nothing missing!" she insisted; not least because she'd spent the entire week scouring the house to make sure every trace of anything that could possible be Sawada Shin's had been removed or put in that package.

"No, there's definitely something not here," he mused, scratching his chin with his hand. "I guess it _must _have been left in the house somewhere..or _was it _at the cinema..." he remarked thoughtfully, and only when he looked up and sent her a twinkling kind of look did she fully realize the depth of his plans.

"Oh no!" she bellowed, pointing at him accusingly as if the revelation was hers and hers alone. "You won't trick me like this, Sawada Shin," she warned. "You can't just do as you please, pretending that there's nothing wrong with what you're doing."

"Well," he said confidently, "that leaves you with two options, the first being you and I accidentally being at the same cinema at the same time seeing that new Yakuza film that's been released." She did not falter, even if he was trying to bait her with the very film she'd mentioned she wanted to see to the class a few weeks ago in passing.

"Which are?" she demanded.

"Well I could stay _here_ and look for that thing I cannot find," he proposed in a sultry way, and something made Kumiko feel very worried to have Shin around her in her own home for too long. "Or," he added, "I could always go to a gambling house with Wakamatsu and Kyou. They could use me after the week they've had." At this he grinned, because they both were aware that Shin could do exactly that, and if anything as his teacher she wanted him to stay _out _of those kinds of places.

"You forgot one," she said loudly, taking a step towards Shin threateningly. "I throw you out on your arrogant punk-ass."

He smirked and tilted his head at her. "You'd do that to me?" he chuckled.

Next thing he knew he was flat on his back about two meters away from the door. "Damn," he hissed as he stared up at the night sky. "Guess she would." He sighed and sat upright. "I'll get it later!" he called into the house as Yankumi slammed the door on him. "You'll see!"

For a moment the door opened again, and a ray of hope flashed over him briefly, but ended when his shoes and pants were thrown out of the door and landed over his head. Shin only grinned. It wouldn't be the same if she didn't put a damn good fight.

"Oi, Shin!" Kuma barked the next morning as he sat in Shin's one-room appartment eating leftover takeaways. "The boys are going on a goukon tonight, and they've said you'll come."

"Why would they say that?" Shin asked wearily, although he already knew the answer. Usually saying that _he _was going to be there was the way that Ucchi and the others got pretty girls to agree to go out with them.

"Well you know," Kuma mumbled. "You haven't been out in ages, Shin. You barely ever go out at all except for school."

"As far as _you_ know," the redhead retorted, and Kuma looked a little surprised and slightly hurt. "I just meant that I do _some _other stuff," Shin mumbled apologetically. "I'm not interested in meeting girls."

"Why not? You're not still pining for _her _are you?" Kuma groaned. Shin shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.

"What can I say," he excused blandly. "I'm still after her, yeah."

"But _why_," Kuma questioned. "She's not pretty, she hasn't got a good body, her temper is something fierce... I mean she's a good teacher, but I'd sooner go out with a tiger."

"Lion," Shin corrected quickly, but after receiving a confused look from his friend pretended he'd just coughed. "She's better than any high-school girls," he argued. "I mean, to _me _she is."

"Shin...." Kuma said quietly, not daring to make eye contact as he asked the question that burned in his mind. "Do you... love her?" A moment of deadly silence passed, but it did not look like Shin was thinking about it so much as considering his words.

"Yes," he breathed. "I do."

"Oh," his friend muttered, not sure what asking that had accomplished seeing as he had known the answer anyway, just hadn't quite believed it. "Well... what are you going to _do, _then? She's not just going to agree to go out with you the moment you graduate."

"She will when I'm through," Shin definitely threatened more than anything else. "You'll see. Actually..." he started up again as a sly idea occurred to him. "You know I might just go on that Goukon after all." Kuma's face brightened up.

"You will?! Great!" Now at least the girls would agree to _stay _for the date tonight, Kuma thought to himself in relief.

Come Monday the boys of 3D were boasting about their incredibly successful goukon from the weekend and passing around pictures Ucchi had taken on his cell phone, as well as some from a photo booth as well.

"Hey! Would you brats concentrate!" Yankumi scolded. "You only have to do this for two more weeks, so just pay attention!!" However, the hustle would not die down, because a certain someone did not _want _it to die down, and in the end their irate teacher had to snatch both the phone and pictures away from the boys. "I'll keep these until the end of class, and maybe we can get some work done before then, eh?" she taunted, and on the way back to her desk at the front of class nearly tripped clean over someone's schoolbag.

"Oi watch out Yankumi you dozy cow!" someone jeered, but a murderous look from her was enough to shut him up pretty sharpish. The fact was that she had chanced to have a look at the pictures as she walked back to the front, and noticed the very obvious, very red-haired, very being made eyes at by every single girl in the shot _Shin _in the pictures, and as a matter of fact she really wasn't too pleased about it. In fact she nearly broke the phone, she was squeezing it so very tight in her hand.

"Hey hey, that thing's expensive, Yankumi!" Ucchi begged. "Be gentle with it!" Kumiko glared, but it was not at the boy speaking to her, but at the obnoxiously smug looking redhead in the back row. In that moment she couldn't help but feel that the entire event had been contrived by him from the very beginning, and she _really _wasn't pleased about that.

Shin hadn't meant to fall asleep in class this time, in fact the last lesson of the day was not even with Yankumi, and he had intended to go home and let her mull over what she had seen for a while, but it was so habitual that simply being in the classroom made him drowsy. The key problem with this was that when asleep his guard was let down, and that left him open to being woken up by having erasers thrown not-gently at his head.

"School is over," Yankumi said harshly to him as she stormed into the classroom, everyone else having left some time ago, to get some of her books before she went home. "You should go home."

"I've got no one expecting me," he retorted. "What difference does it make?" She did not respond, but did throw another eraser at him, which he caught lazily as he eyed her proudly. He hadn't expected such a good reaction so quickly.

"What's made you so sour?" he taunted, slowly getting up and sliding around to sit on top of his desk.

"Nothing!" she snapped, and was about to storm clear out of the room again without another word to the fickle-minded emotion-playing _bastard_, when he spoke up suddenly.

"Jealous?" he questioned as she put her hand on the door handle. "Hm? Kumiko?"

At this she whirled around, the fire in her eyes blazing and in a few long stride was only a few arm's lengths away from Shin.

"JEALOUS?!" she roared. "Why should I be jealous!... And _don't _call me Kumiko!" she added hastily as Shin only returned her look calmly.

"I was just trying to get your attention," he said coolly. "Looks like I got it."

"Ohh, you have my attention all right," she glowered, reaching out with another step and grabbing him by the shirt. "I suppose you think this is _funny_, huh? Messing with hearts? Thinking you can get away with it because of that pretty face of yours." Her grip tightened, and Shin sensed that there was a fine edge of real danger to the situation.

"I've never made anything but my absolute intentions towards you clear," he said fiercely. "You can't scare me, so if you have something to say then you better goddam say it!" _That _had got to her, he could see, and for a moment her grip loosened.

"If... if you really... mean the things you said to me that time," she began, suddenly much meeker than before, "then why would you go out on goukons?"

"If I like you, why would I go out with other girls, you mean?" he fed her own question back to her, well aware of his bolder phrasing. "Simple," he answered. "I knew it would make you jealous-" Yankumi suddenly tried to speak up, but he carried on talking over her and didn't give her a chance to protest, "–and maybe then you'd realize as much as you're pretending to reject me, you actually can't stand the idea of me going off with another girl."

All of her words falling useless, Kumiko's mouth flapped mutely for a few moments until Shin slyly darted a hand out to still it, resting his finger over her lips.

"So, maybe next time you'll give me a shot, eh?" he baited, and as she stepped back to separate Shin's hand from her mouth, where memories of a certain kiss now burned hotly on her lips, Yankumi nodded ever so faintly. "Good to hear," he remarked smugly, and then with a shake of his shoulders stood up from the desk, as if nothing of importance had passed. "I'll see you tomorrow then," he said casually, and began to stroll towards the door.

Yankumi quickly followed after him, but when he was no more than two steps away from the door Shin suddenly turned on his heels.

"Just _one_," he muttered so quickly that before she even knew what was what Yankumi found herself in a terrifyingly strong embrace, and locked into a desperate and hungry kiss. In moments she felt her back going up against the wall, and while her own hands dangled limply, too stunned to do anything but remain by her sides, against her better judgements her neck was turned the opposite way to his, and her lips parted and reciprocal to his heat and passion.

"Sorry," he gasped as he pulled back, wiping his mouth with his hand almost guiltily. "I just couldn't..." he broke off as he flicked his gaze back up towards her, and saw the glazed look in her eyes and flush in her face as she leant back unsteadily against the back wall; all too inviting. He groaned softly and leant forwards slowly, until his forehead rested against hers. "This really isn't the time or place to be looking at me like that," he warned her. "School grounds, you know?" While his tone was light-hearted and teasing, his look certainly wasn't, and alarm bells went off in Yankumi's head as she realized just what that kind of a look coming from a guy of Shin's age suggested.

"Hahaha hahha hahhaa hahaIbetterbegoing!" she rushed, and dashed straight past him out of the room, almost leaving dustclouds behind her as she fled as fast as her jelly legs could carry her.

That situation in the classroom was a strong reminder that Shin could very easily exert a power over her that he could barely control himself, and kept Yankumi cautious enough to stay clear away from _him_ for the rest of the week, until there really was only five school days and one ceremony until they were no longer student and teacher. Not that it would look good if word got out that something was going on between them so close to school time anyway.

It really would've been much better for them both if Shin had taken her lead and stayed well away.

Hell, if those punks from the neighbouring high school had stayed away too then that would've helped an awful lot.

"Ou?" Yankumi said as she answered her phone, only to be greeted by a very bracing scream.

"YANKUMIsomeguyswhohavebeen--fromanotherhighschool-

-cameuptousand--andhesaidhedidn't-knowwhotheywere-

buttheysaidtheyknew-he-wastheyoungredlionorsomething-andiftheybeat-himupthey'dbebound-

togetacceepted-intothegroupand-Shinsaidthey'dneverbeaccepted-anywherecausethey'retrash-

and-that-gotthemmadand-thenSHINWENTOFFWITHTHEM-andifhegets-killedhe'llNEVERbeabletograduate!"

"Ucchi, slow down!" she screamed back down the line. "Something about Shin?!"

"He went off with them on his own!" Ucchi wailed. "We tried to go with them but he knocked us all back!"

"With who?!" she barked – as if Shin wasn't causing enough trouble in her life already.

"Some Yakuza punks! They said that if they beat him up they were bound to get respect from the..."

"Those rotten punks!" Yankumi hissed, knowing this was serious trouble if kids were trying to challenge Shin now. If it had gotten to that stage already there really wasn't much going back, not that Shin was given to U-turns anyway. "Do you know where they took him?!"

"They were walking in the direction of the empty Nekomanta building!" Ucchi squealed. "They're gonna kill him, Yankumi! These are Yakuza we're talking about."

"Calm down," she said sternly, and the wailing on the phone quietened suddenly. "Don't try to follow him, any of you, just go home and stay out of trouble. I'll bring Shin back."

"You better get the police," her student advised her. "Those kids looked dangerous."

"I'll handle it, Ucchi," she told him coolly, hanging up and then getting to her feet. "I'm going out!" she yelled into the next room where Wakamatsu and Kyou were playing Othello.

"Why?" one of them yelled back.

"Shin got challenged by some wannabe live-ins and agreed to go off with them to fight," she replied.

"Ooooh that one gets older every day," Kyou lilted in a far-too romantic tone. "I'm so _proud_ of him!"

"Well he's not going to be able to graduate if he gets killed or arrested," she retorted as she pulled on a coat and and headed out towards the door. Slamming the front door irately behind her, she missed the giggles that came from the room she had passed, where two dangerous men snickered and gossiped like housewives.

She biked over to the old Nekomanta office building as fast as she could – she wasn't crazy enough to think that those has-beens would dare to try anything against the Kuroda house again, but since their organization fell apart there was a struggle between families going on for their old areas. Since the building was still abandoned it was a prime area for brawling too, as it was still given a wide birth by civilian and policeman alike.

There was a light on when she arrived, and after bursting in through the door – still on her bike – ready to raise hell, she hadn't expected to see at least four punks on the floor with a lead pipe-wielding Shin standing shakily in the middle. From the looks of things she had just missed the end.

"Punks must be getting weaker," he murmured weakly as he dropped the blood-spatted pipe he had been toting over his shoulder, and it fell to the concrete floor with a clang. "I didn't feel a thing."

"Must be that thick skull of yours," she retorted sharply, picking between the unconscious bodies on the floor to approach him. Even if he had won in the end, it had been at a pretty high cost because he sure as hell didn't look like he could have lasted a moment longer. He had a split lip, black eye, cuts and bruises all over his face as well as his body, and his uniform was ripped and bloodied. "Were they armed?" she questioned.

"No," he sighed.

"It's dirty to use a weapon against unarmed men," she scolded him, glaring down at the pipe he had been holding.

"It's dirty to fight four on one," he retorted, and she didn't really have an answer to that. Instead she slapped him.

"Don't go causing trouble!" she berated him. "You've got _five _days of school left, couldn't this have waited?!"

"Ask them not me," he fired back, his cheek stinging badly from the slap, "and this wasn't school business." Yankumi scowled and said nothing, as she knew as well as he did that this had been mob politics and nothing to do with Shirokin.

"You better come back with me," she eventually said reluctantly. "You need to get those wounds treated. Oh," she groaned, "you are going to be a _sight _at the graduation ceremony, you are."

"My place is closer," he interjected bluntly. "I really don't think I can walk far." As if to demonstrate, he took a step forward and his leg wobbled, the adrenaline that had been fuelling him through the fight now no longer of aid to him.

"Here," she said, stepping under his shoulder so he could rest some weight on her. "_Fine_, I can scold you when you're somewhere safe."

"You mean there's _more?_" he groaned, and she jostled him roughly as they slowly headed towards the street.

"You have NO idea," she fumed. "If you weren't half-dead already I woulda killed you myself."

"Great, I love you too," he snarled sarcastically, his head throbbing as he stumbled about on her shoulder.

"What?" she spluttered, wobbling herself and nearly sending both of them tumbling into a pile of garbage. "What did you say?"

"What?" he snapped. "Can we please move a little faster, Yankumi? I feel like I'm going to be sick."

"Humph," she huffed. "Well I hope you realize this is just the beginning. By accepting people challenging your name for Kuroda you've basically signed yourself away in these parts. People are going to keep trying their hand at you until you lose, leave, or get official backing from Ojii-san."

Shin said nothing, but his silence and the current situation seemed to imply that he wasn't intending to do either of the first two; not to mention the sideways glance he was giving her.

"...You are _not _joining the family!" she protested when the silence dragged on and on.

"If you say so," he responded glibly, and then said nothing more until they had arrived at the apartment block he lived in. He shifted away from her and leant back against the front door. "_So_...?" he proposed playfully, even with a face like that maintaining his charm. "You coming inside?"

* * *

Loooong chapters are long, but if I pick a format I like to stick with it, although at this length it will take a while to write another chapter. However, that doesn't mean I won't, and please leave a review too if you have the time.


	4. Chapter 4

Update smupdate and a big thankyou to all readers and reviewers, you guys are all so awesome!  


* * *

"Uuuggh," Shin groaned as he let himself fall on his bed with a soft thump, and pressed a hand over his eyes. "There's ice in the freezer," he said, and the quiet sound of footsteps and doors opening came from the other end of the room where the kitchen area was.

"Here," said Kumiko Yamaguichi as she tossed a bag of ice down on the bed next to him; Shin groped for it and then pressed it against his face with a sigh of relief. "You've got first aid here, right?" She assumed he must because he was no stranger to fights, even before he got mixed up in the Kuroda business.

"Cupboard next to the fridge," he instructed, and more pottering about sounds came from the far end of the room.

"Aha," she said as she discovered the box, and carried it across to where he lay, stopping to grab something to drink. "Here, painkillers," she tossed a packet of push pills at her student and handed him a glass of water, so he obligingly popped a couple out and swallowed them. His breathing sped up a little when he felt her kneeling on the bed beside him and reaching out for his hand. "Let me see," she inquired, moving the ice pack away from his face and staring at his injuries. "Gosh you look ugly," she said and he swatted at her in retaliation with his free hand.

"You've no gratitude," he berated as she prodded at his face in a way that was really more painful than pleasing.

"Oh? How's that?!" she retorted.

"Well if I'd lost then it would've reflected on Kuroda," he explained, but somewhat regretted it when she poked him deliberately hard in a bruise. "OW!" he snapped.

"You're NOT part of the Kuroda family!" she growled. "Whether you get beat or not has got nothing to do with them!" Almost instantly Shin rose up and rolled over her, throwing his weight easily onto Yankumi until he had her pinned down to the bed underneath him.

"I'm not a part of it _yet_," he reminded her, and she didn't need to be told how he was intending to become a part. In fact it was just about all she could think of at the time, considering his entire body was pressed up against hers in a less than subtle way.

"Get your ugly mug out of my face," she hissed uncomfortably.

"Make me," he challenged, so with that she threw him off violently and sat up; although, he moved so closely with her that they ended up no further apart than before. "Not that I object to all this cat and mouse play," he remarked caustically, "but you know you don't have to put up a fight here, right? This is just about the only place no one is going to see." He shifted slightly and then his hand was on top of hers, warm and strong, tempting her with every passing moment.

"Look... _Shin_..." Yankumi, said gently, her other hand moving to grip his. "it's really quite hard for you to seduce me... when you have a face like _that_," she finished taunting just as she moved up the ice pack and pressed it over his face, pushing him away from her in the process.

"All right, all right, I'll leave it... for now," he relented as he lay back on the bed and sighed. "I'm not really in the mood anyway."

"The mood for WHAT?" she snarled. "I just helped you home because you could barely walk!" She tried to stand up in outrage, but Shin grabbed hold of her wrist and pulled her back down.

"Don't go," he requested, "please, Yankumi." As much as part of her mind was telling her to rip her hand away from his and walk straight out of the door, she couldn't quite resist Shin speaking to her like that, and as he said, it wasn't as if anyone _could _see them here, so she didn't really have to put on an act for anyone.

The silliest thing of all was that even though they were teacher and student, they were _friends_ as well. Okay, it was slowly moving on to the next level whether she seemed to like it or not, but that didn't stop them being friends for one minute, and they both knew that well enough.

"Oh all right," she sighed, flopping down onto the bed again and lying on her side next to him without touching him. "Only because you said please, though."

"Does that work for everything?" he retorted quickly. "Like, _please _give me a- OW!" he yelped as she punched him in the shoulder. "I was just kidding!" he hissed. "Relax, will you?!"

"I can't relax around you these days," she replied as she rolled her eyes. "I never know what you're going to do next."

"Well if I promise to do nothing but lie here with this ice on my head will you chill?" he proposed, and Yankumi grumbled an agreement, settling herself on the bed again and propping her head on one hand.

"So they just came up to you and asked for a fight?" she asked after a while, seeking a conversation to end the prickly silence that came in its absence.

"Yup," he replied. "They asked if I was the Young Red Lion, I said what difference did it make, and _they_ said they were gonna pound the shit out of him."

"Well then couldn't you have just said you weren't? There are other people with red hair in this city."

"What and have someone else get the beating instead? That's not right and you know it," he countered. "So I said if _that_ was the case then I was, then they told me to come with them somewhere we wouldn't be interrupted. I had to shove off the others or they would've gotten mixed up in it, and the last thing that lot need is getting messed up in Yakuza business."

"The last thing _you _need too," she pointed out.

"I can't help it though, can I?" he replied, lifting the ice pack to send a knowing look her way. "I suggested that we go to the old Nekomanta place and they agreed fair enough, but there was four of them and they weren't exactly weak, so I had to grab a weapon or I would've been toast."

"You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess," Yankumi relented, even though she wasn't happy with Shin using a weapon in any kind of fight; one's fists _should_ be all they needed, but she only had to look at him nowto realize he had only done what he needed to stay alive.

"Likewise," Shin bounced the comment back at her. "I've got a ways to go before I'm anything like Kyou or Wakamatsu..."

"Speaking of which, how's that new tattoo holding up?" She knew that he moved on quickly because neither felt like entering into another 'you are NOT becoming one of them' situations concerning the men of the Kuroda group.

"Fine," she replied shortly, not much fonder of the new topic either. "It could be years before _everything _is finished, but the main pattern is done and that's what I wanted to..." she broke off before she said a little too much.

"To what?" Shin prodded. "Go on, you wanted to do what? Show the Lawyer?" She was somewhere half way between a scowl and a yelp of surprise, but then settled down upon remembering Shin was apt to guess most things she thought weren't obvious to others.

"...Yeah," she muttered. "I sorta did." She felt a little childish and ashamed of it now that it had been put like that.

"Neh, you're entitled to I suppose," Shin assured her. "I mean, if a guy dumped you for something pathetic like being a Yakuza heir then _why not _rub it in his face." He may not have seen as he still had the icepack pressed over the eye closet to her, but Yankumi flushed a little. Shin was so outspoken about Shinohara's reasons for telling her to let go of him, and had such an opposite viewpoint she could hardly believe it was genuine sometimes.

"_You_ obviously don't care about such things," she remarked, letting her hand slip and her head slowly fall down to rest flat against the bed.

"Not one bit," he said. "Call it the fire of youth or whatever, but I wouldn't let anything stop me from getting the girl I want." There was a short pause in which neither said a word. "That's you," he added eventually. "In case you hadn't got that already."

"Uh... no, I got it," she mumbled awkwardly.

"Although, I mean, if you're going to let Shinohara see it, I think that I'm entitled to as well," Shin announced afresh.

"You've seen it already," she protested.

"Not _completely_," he replied almost tritely. "Not _all _of it."

"I'm not showing anyone _all _of it," she parroted him. "So quit whining."

"I wanted to look again, though," he protested, but sensing that his chances for success weren't good, gave up with another groan. "I'm getting kinda tired," he mumbled after a while. "You can go if you want." Instantly Yankumi bounced up to her feet and was about to stroll straight out the door, but had second thoughts two steps in and changed her mind, returning to sit on the corner of the bed.

"It's not good to leave someone with head injuries," she explained. "You could be concussed or even worse. Someone should watch over you."

"And you're the only one here," he concluded, smiling for a moment and then wincing as he strained his split lip. "Lucky me."

"Oh yes," she drawled sarcastically. "Just go to sleep, Shin."

"Don't I get a goodnight kiss?" he taunted more than he teased.

"You'll get a goodnight punch if you don't quieten down!" she scolded, and with a heaving breath he rolled over and closed his eyes. He was obviously exhausted and fell asleep within minutes, leaving Yankumi lying awake next to him, suddenly realizing what a difficult situation she'd ended up in this time. She _was_ going to have to spend the night, because she'd been serious about Shin needing someone to watch him – those injuries were hardly mild – but that meant she was most likely going to sleep here too, even if it was only for a little bit.

She quietly got up and started to look around his room for something to sleep in, as she wasn't planning on sleeping in what she had on now, not if she had to go home wearing it tomorrow, and _certainly _wasn't going to be sleeping naked! Luckily she found a plain t-shirt and some shorts that didn't look too worn, and she snuck into the bathroom to change – even if he _was_ asleep she wasn't comfortable changing with Shin lying right there.

Returning, she settled back down on the bed again, as there was nowhere else to sit comfortably in such a small apartment, and flicked through a few books she found on a nightstand. They were all intensely boring, and in no time she too felt herself nodding off. She looked over at Shin, who was still soundly sleeping on top of the covers, and then looked back at the bed.

She wasn't going to get any sleep on the floor, and he wasn't even _in _the bed himself, she reasoned. It shouldn't be a problem if she just had the tiniest nap in his bed, right? It wasn't like they'd even _done_ anything... she was just watching out for her precious student. – This was the last thought on Yankumi's mind before she drifted off into a deep and lasting sleep.

"Gooood morning," a horse, throaty voice woke her the next morning. Reluctantly she opened her eyes and saw Shin far, far too close to her.

"Waah!" she yelped, sitting bolt upright and headbutting him.

"Ow!" he yelled. "What the fuck was that for?!"

"I was just resting my eyes!" she proclaimed, scrambling out of the bed holding her hands out toward Shin, who gave her a slow and careful up and down with his eyes.

"Wearing my stuff?" he remarked, and Yankumi's state of distress only heightened.

"I had no other choice," she whined.

"No, no, I'm not complaining," he replied with a half smile like the cat who got the cream. "I like it."

Yankumi's lower lip tightened into an unhappy pout, and she turned her back on him and walked towards her own clothes, folded in a neat pile on the chest of drawers.

"I'm going home," she announced. "You're obviously fine now."

"You don't have the time to go home," he told her, glancing at the clock. "School starts in in forty minutes."

"WHAT?!" she screamed, and then backpedalled across the room to swipe at Shin angrily. "Why didn't you wake me earlier!"

"_I_ didn't wake up earlier," he retorted. "It's plenty of time to get in for me."

"But I have to go home and shower and change and..." Yankumi began to babble, until Shin finally took pity and interrupted her.

"You'll have to do it here," he informed her, and his expression sure looked like he'd known that from the very start, and was also pretty damn pleased about it. "Go on, you can have the bathroom first."

She stood there for half a minute or so thinking it over. She did not want to embed herself here any more than she accidentally had, because while it wouldn't have bothered her mere weeks ago now she was conscious of every slight step towards domesticity and romance they took. She didn't _want_ to shower here or go straight to work from here in the clothes she arrived in yesterday, but as Shin said she had no time to go back home. She looked at him once more, examining carefully as he prodded at his injuries in the mirror, plastering band-aids over some of the worse cuts.

She was just going to have to make the best of it, she consoled herself in the end, and turned to dash towards the bathroom.

"If you peek at me I'll tear you a new one, geddit?!" she threatened as she opened the door.

"Rodger that," Shin replied uninterestedly, although the moment the door shut behind her his eyes lingered on it almost compulsively.

Five minutes passed with the sound of rushing water coming from inside the little washroom, then ten, then fifteen: they were going to run out of time at this rate.

"Hey, Yankumi," he yelled, banging on the door with his fist. "Hurry up, you're not the only person who needs to use that!"

"Five more minutes!"

"No! School starts in less than half an hour."

"Whaaaat!" The water quickly shut off, and the sound of wet feet slapping on the floor and things being knocked off shelves came from within. Just as he was about to knock again the door flew open and she dashed out, still wrapped in a towel. "Gonna be late gonna be late gonna be late!" she babbled as she crashed about the room grabbing her clothes, and having collected them headed back towards the bathroom, only to have an arm block her entry.

"Oi," Shin said. "I need that." She looked up at him with wide, puppy eyes. "No," he snapped. "I've still got _blood_ all over me, Yamaguichi Kumiko."

"But where am _I_ gonna change?" she asked sweetly, eyes every growing in size in spite of his full-naming her.

"Out on the balcony for all I care," Shin retorted, and then stepped inside and slammed the door, emerging no more than five minutes later quickly and efficiently clean, rubbing his hair on a towel, which took a deep plummy colour when wet. As he looked across the room for Yankumi, he cracked into a thrilled smirk as he saw at her, back turned to him, just about to pull her top over her head.

Meaning she hadn't done it _yet_. So, he did what he thought best and whistled at her, at which she squeaked and hastily pulled her top down.

"That was _low_," she grumbled as she went about to gather her shoes and bag.

"You know, in this light it really looks pretty good," he remarked, pretending he was not aware of what he was doing, and for a moment she spun around with an overjoyed smile.

"Really?!" she asked eagerly, and then checked herself and bit her lip, turning around again. "I mean... none of your business."

"_I'd _say it's my business," he said coolly. "I'm the inspiration, after all."

"Hardly, Shin," she replied. "You don't have the monopoly on lions, you know."

"I _did_ hear that you got the idea off a picture from the school," he argued, having been filled in on the details by Kyou and Wakamatsu's wife. "A couple of lions? You know _I_ drew it, right?"

"Just because your half-assed picture gave me the idea doesn't change the meaning," she told him, and prodded him in the chest as she walked past him towards the door. "Get your jacket and get moving, I don't want to be late." She was lucky in the respect that she had left home last night to find Shin dressed in relatively inconspicuous day-clothes. She would have to give the tracksuit a miss for once, but she didn't look conspicuously like she hadn't come from her own house that morning.

"Fine," he grunted, grabbing the few things he needed and following her to the door. "What do you mean by 'doesn't change the meaning'?" he questioned as they walked down the stairs side by side.

"Irezumi is more than just a pretty picture," she said critically. "It has a deeper meaning for the one who wears it. I chose a Lioness because I wanted a strong, powerful female." She gave Shin a sideways glance. "It symbolises who and what I am. Something no _man _will ever be able to hurt me for being... again."

"I'd never hurt you, full stop," he replied brisquely. "Well," he added, "unless you asked nicely." He gave her a look that brushed goosebumps all the way up her arms.

"It's a bit early in the day for that," she mumbled, and then realized – speaking of her tattoo – that the top she was wearing was short-sleeved. "Oh, you can't _see _any of her, can you?" she asked worriedly, turning away so that her back was shown to Shin.

"You're fine," he answered patting her in the small of the back to usher her along, and they reached the bus stop just as a bus turned the corner. "Ah," he said. "You get on this bus. I'll take the next."

"Huh? Why..." she began, but stopped when she realized that he was making it so they wouldn't arrive together, as that might invite suspicion. "Ooooh," she gasped. "Good thinking. Well now, don't just go home and go back to bed! I know what you're like... I expect to see you at your desk before first period."

"Hnn," he made a sound of acquiescence, and glanced left and right as the bus pulled up. "See you later." He leant forwards suddenly and brushed a half-kiss against her cheek, his hand now holding her waist. As the bus doors opening he then straightened up, spun her around and gave her a push forwards. "Off you go!" he said cheerfully, waving as she looked back at him in shock, and then irritation.

"Sawada!!" she yelled as the bus driver pulled away. "Ooh he's getting cockier by the minute," she grumbled to herself, rubbing her cheek furiously as if she could scrub out the blush with it.

True to his word, Shin was at his desk on time. "Whoa, Shin! Look at you!" his friends joshed as they huddled around him in the morning. "What happened with those Yakuza? They did that to you, right? You didn't fight them on your own did you?!"

"Well I got a few hits in on'em," Shin narrated wearily, making it very clear he was going to tell the story only once. "Then they mobbed me. The police broke it up pretty quick after that, so that's why I only look _this_ bad."

"Whoooaaaah, scary," Ucchi said in awe. "You took on a bunch of Yakuza! That's so brave, Shin." The boy's eyes gleamed with a rather disturbing shade of hero worship, until Yankumi banged her ruler on the desk and called for a start to the day.

"OH! Yankumi!" one of the other boys in the class yelled. "You're wearing normal clothes!"

"Of course I am," she retorted effortlessly. "I do _have _other clothes you ignorant brats. I don't _live _in a tracksuit."

"Coulda fooled me," someone muttered under his breath, but she decided it was best to ignore it and press on with the class. There wasn't really much to cover now as the final exams were all over and this last week was mostly preparation for graduation and university. Those who were going, of course, of which Shin was _still _not among.

He could've gone almost anywhere he wanted; he'd received invitational letters from several prestigious universities, and after being forced by a combination of pressure from his parents and Yankumi herself had made a few unwilling applications. He'd then received almost unconditional offers to study in a good few places, but for every way she or his parents could bully or push him, he did not express the slightest intention to go.

She wondered if perhaps she could use... well, what he had said he felt about her, to get him into going – heaven's knew she didn't want him to end up as a live-in at her house, not that she thought her Grandpa would allow such a thing to happen. Shin was far too young and clever to waste it all living with thugs. She loved her family, but that is mostly what they were in their business capacity, and Shin deserved _more_.

Now she thought about it the way Shin had been acting with her certainly wasn't helping these feelings she'd been having about him for some time – nothing like _that – _but simply that he deserved a lot better than what he had, or what he was intending to do after Shirokin.

She had to persuade him by graduation at least, so although any time they spent together was increasingly loaded, maybe it would be to her advantage for once.

Not today though. Today she wanted to go straight home, avoid any questioning, assumptions or teasing from the others and pretend none of last night had mattered or meant anything. Which is exactly what she did.

Give or take a little grilling.

"Kumiko," came the soft rasp of her grandpa's voice at the door as she buried herself in end-of-year reports and new student applications. "May I enter?" he asked _as _he stepped inside; not so much a question as a warning.

"How are you feeling today, grandpa?" she asked deceptively, hoping to lead the conversation far away enough from the fact that she didn't come home last night to not have to explain it.

"I am feeling fine," Ryuichiro answered. "I wonder how _he_ is feeling."

"He? Who is that?" she acted poorly – _very _poorly.

"Our friend Master Sawada," he stated uncompromisingly. "I hear reports that he was confronted by four boys around the old Nekomanta building last night."

"Yes..." she replied. "They were eager to get into some other group, and thought that..." she paused, not wanting to have to say it so concisely. "They thought that if they beat up Kuroda's Red Lion they'd get some good cred." She winced as she said it, for it was the pinnacle of the very thing she had been trying so hard to avoid.

"Ah, I see," Ryuichiro murmured, and then after a pause, looked up and asked, "Did he win?"

"Grandpa!" she protested.

"I am concerned _only_ for his safety," he assured her, although that glint of a slight untruth sparked in his eyes. "...But _did _he?" She wanted to laugh even now, because at his age and with his health declining, her Grandpa was still as sharp and full of life as he had always been.

"...He did," she admitted, and tried not to worry too much about just what that grin on her grandpa's face then meant. "He wasn't in a good way though, when I found him."

"Ahh," Ryuichiro hummed, urging her story onwards without giving away too much of his somewhat vested interest in the hero.

"His friends were the ones who warned me, but by the time I got there he was already done." She shrugged. "I had to help him back home and... watched him overnight," she mumbled, willing herself not to blush. "I mean! He could've been concussed and-" Ryuichiro held up a hand to silence her.

"I understand, you did the right thing by him," he said warmly. "Don't worry about it." Yankumi smiled weakly, actually feeling quite relieved after explaining what had happened to someone – even if it was nothing, the fact that she could _say _it was nothing did a lot to ease her discomfort and uncertainty.

"Grandpa?" she asked meekly.

"Kumiko?"

"You wouldn't.... ever let Shin start out as a live-in here, would you?" Ryuichiro raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise at her question. "I mean, he refuses to consider university still, and he keeps behaving as if the Kuroda family are going to take him in just like that... and I don't think you _would_, but he is awfully stubborn sometimes and..."

"Calm down," Ryuichiro chuckled, and ruffled his granddaughter's hair affectionately. "Young Sawada has too much to waste by coming here. He would barely be above Kudou, and that is no place for... what was it they call him? 'Young Master Red Lion'? No, don't even think about it, granddaughter. I will not have him here."

"Thank goodness," Yankumi sighed; even though she hadn't expected her Grandpa to say any different, it was a great comfort to hear it first hand from him. It would be easier to persuade Shin with Grandpa's full support behind her.

"Besides," said Ryuichiro as he stood up and dusted himself down, strolling back into the rest of the house to leave Kumiko with her work.

"I'm planning for that boy to succeed the _traditional _Kuroda way." With that and a wink, Ryuichiro Kuroda almost _skipped_ outside and slammed the sliding door, as his granddaughter scrambled to her feet, yelling and screaming, and started chasing him down the hall.

* * *

Because old people have the _most _fun XD

Leave a review if like me you have a dangerous fixation with Sawada Shin!


	5. Chapter 5

Wow this one came out pretty quick, actually. I must be picking up the 'chaptered romance fic' swing of things again. Good times.

A few little points of context - this is _all _mangaverse Gokusen, so all characterisation and references are drawn wholly from there and not the drama.

However, it is sort of a mish-mash of canon and AU, because as I'm sure most of you have noticed (who read the manga) it does not follow the official events and totally disregards the special (which I hadn't read until a few days ago actually). Not that it is very important, but I thought I'd mention it just in case it confused any other nerds for the manga like me.

AU but not AU... basically. Anyway, on with the story!

* * *

Two days until graduation now. Two days to talk her student into accepting a university. Two days to talk him out of falling in with her family of gangsters.

Two days was plenty of time, right?

The bell sounded for the end of classes, and the students bounced to their feet instead of the usual shuffle – they knew the end was near, so they had every reason to be hopeful and excited. After all, thanks to the exhausting work of Yankumi and their other teachers _all _of the boys in their class had places to study at university or apprenticeships arranged.

Shin wasn't in the classroom, but that was okay – she knew where he would be, and she supposed it saved her the trouble of getting him there herself. As a matter of fact, she bumped into him just leaving the doorway to the stairs onto the roof.

"Oi, you," she said as he went to pass her, poking him in the shoulder. "I don't come up here for the exercise, you know."

"Well you've had that look in your eye all day," he responded glibly, turning as she pushed him and resting his back against the wall of the stairwell. "I don't want any more lectures, _sensei_," he mocked, his tone far too humorous and extravagant to be taken even slightly seriously.

"Nuh, uh, come on," she said, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him back up out the doors whether he wanted to go or not.

"Eesh, no pity for the wounded I see," he groaned as she released his collar and swung him a few paces out onto the roof. "What is it this time?" he questioned, looking her up and down as he crumpled down to sit on the floor.

"Oh, just the usual," she told him with a grin, taking a seat next to him and shrugging off her tracksuit jacket, newly reinstated after her unexpected day without it. "You can do better, Shin, you should go to university, Shin."

"There's nothing I want to do there," he stated, as ever.

"You don't know that; you haven't gone yet," she retorted. " I know it is your choice, but you could do so much _more_ than... than well..."

"What? Getting a job fresh out of high school? You know I'd never do that," he said smoothly, leaning over to bump his shoulder against hers. "I've got other plans."

"About that," she started. "I've confirmed this with my grandpa, so you should know there _is_ no place at the Kuroda grounds for you." Her look was steely and unrelenting, but he met it without worry or wavering.

"Is that so?" he said aloofly.

"Yep. _He _thinks you've got too much potential to waste living like a dog there as well."

"Seems like everyone is thinking things about me these days," he sighed, scratching behind one of his ears lazily. "Who considers what _I _think any more?"

"You know that we do," she shot back. "But you're young... you don't-"

"Don't know what I want?" he suggested, angry all of a sudden, and grabbed her far shoulder and turned her to face him, staring intensely into her eyes as he gripped her shoulder hard. "No one makes my decisions but me," he said softly, but his words were firm and threatening. "So _don't _say I can't tell what I want from what I don't, because I know damn well," he cursed, and from the way his eyes kept flicking down to her mouth she knew _exactly _what he was wanting at that moment.

"Well I'm prepared to make you a deal," she said quietly, and his eyes lingered on hers a little longer. "If you'll consider university... I'll..." She exhaled a short half-gasp, and almost instantly he pushed her away, nearly violent.

"I don't want your pity," he snapped. "The _last _thing I need is-" This time it was her chance to interrupt, as she pushed back against his force until she was leaning over him, one hand planted across his body against the cold stone slabs of the roofspace.

"I'd never patronise you, idiot!" she growled, rolling her eyes as she held herself a little closer over him, knowing that if she didn't hold her place he'd flip the tables on her just as soon as look at her. "I'm just telling you; if you try to go and throw your lot in with them you can _forget it_."

"It?" he questioned knowingly.

"Yep," she retorted, "and if you consider going to university then..."

"Then _what_?" he posed, a smirk now tainting his otherwise good expression.

"Well... then _maybe _I'll consider taking you seriously," she elaborated, "you know how." She pouted, refusing to say what he was trying to drag out of her – they were still on school grounds, after all. Nevertheless, he raised an eyebrow and a single hand, placing the latter against her neck, and slowly lifting it to rest along her hairline.

"Do I get a reminder of what I'd be throwing away? To help me make a decision?" he said, his smirk transforming into a smile just before he closed the space between them and kissed her. His hand tightened against her skin and she felt him pulling her closer, and this time let herself be led. She had _meant_ it when she said she wouldn't patronise him with any false feelings; she did want this, no matter how much her sensibility tried to warn her away from it.

She was a little confused when he suddenly pulled back, but it all cleared up when he briskly pulled her glasses off her face and let them clatter to the ground, guiding her back into another kiss without even taking a moment to breathe. It was too easy to get swept away, so she allowed it to happen and reciprocated, her hands creeping from resting against the floor to be flush against his waist, and then one lifting to brush across his chest as they locked even tighter together at the lips.

For each gesture on her part he returned the sentiment twice as strong, and soon enough she was in danger of being almost in his lap, when he suddenly halted. She backed off a little, and blinked through her glassy vision, her specs still somewhere on the floor. She felt him panting softly close to her, and the warmth of his own body against her skin; evidently, he was a little more affected than she was.

"Stopping now, while I still can," he breathed, resting his forehead against hers, as he had before. "You've no idea how long I've wanted this." Yankumi didn't speak, she didn't really know quite what to say; although, she hoped that his... enthusiasmmeant he wasn't going to go against her now.

"I won't be completely bribed with just with this, though, you know," he said quietly, still holding her close to him, cupping her face in one hand. "I'll hear your offer out, but there's gotta be something a bit more."

"Like... what?" she asked, worrying a little that he was going to demand something inappropriate, and she was no more likely to 'sell' her body to him for compliance than he was to 'buy' it.

"Just a date," he answered assuredly. "A simple date, okay? All I've ever asked from you is a chance."

"Well okay then," she sighed. "I can bring along some university-"

"Oh no you don't," he interjected. "No shop talk on dates." His fingertips still rested against the back of her neck, and almost as if he didn't realise, he slowly drew them back and forth across her skin, in a soft, absent-minded caress.

"Shop talk?" she echoed, trying not to think about forgetting school for the rest of the day and just laying down on Shin's shoulder and chatting in the sun.

"Talking about school or work – if we worked together of course," he explained. "Basically, if I'm taking you out then going through university courses is not going to be on the agenda, understood?"

"Hmph," she huffed, backing away from him a little, kneeling over his outstretched legs. "Fine, but if _that's _the case then I want to go over some things with you first."

"I'll come to your place then," he suggested. "I want to talk to Kumichou about it anyway."

"What?! Why do you want to talk to Grandpa?" she yelped, lurching forwards to give him a stern look.

"Cool it!" he hissed. "I want to talk to him because I'm sure as hell not talking to _my _father about this and I greatly respect him, okay?!"

"Oh," she gasped, humbled and a little embarassed.

"I mean, I do intend to become family," Shin added suddenly, his words sharp with flirtation. "I'd like to have a good relationship my grandfather in-law."

"Shin!" she squealed uncomfortably. "I said a _date_! Not a wedding!"

"We'll see," he retorted. "One thing at a time," he shot her another cheeky look, "_babe_," he added sickly-sweetly, and found himself repaid with a hand whipped fast across his jaw.

"Talk to me like that and I'll throw you off this roof," she threatened; the whole _purpose _of her irezumi was never to become anyone's 'babe' or 'little lady' and she sure as hell wasn't taking that from Shin after all he'd promised to be for her, "understood?"

"You are so easy to provoke, Yankumi," he chuckled, stretching and running the hand he wasn't propped up on through his hair. "You know I'm kidding."

"I didn't go through hours of painful tattooing to become your 'babe'," she said bitterly.

"I know," he replied contently, reaching with his free arm to rest it against the bottom of her back, and with a push slipping his palm underneath her shirt to sit flush against her inked skin. "Believe me, I never would have fallen for you if you _were _that kind of person." He traced his fingers across the small of her back, feeling the ever-so faint outlines of the ink on her skin; it would fade soon, but while it was still new he could pick up the mark of the tattoo on her.

She shuddered a little, as the skin was obviously sensitive, and he couldn't resist stealing another kiss from her slyly.

"Ooh, you should stop doing that," she muttered, rubbing her mouth on her arm and looking down at the floor. "If someone sees we're both in big trouble."

"You didn't mention it back _then_," he remarked, and she knew very well that he meant when they were wrestling tongues.

"Yeah... well," she mumbled.

"You're too cute sometimes," he sniggered, and then gently started to push her off his lap, where she had more or less been knelt in for the past twenty minutes or so. "I hate to say it, but you should really get going, aren't you meant to be, like, teaching or something?"

"I've got a free period," she explained dryly – did he _really _think she'd neglect her job just to play around with him?

"Oh _really_?" he said, a deeply seductive tone dripping off his words. "In _that _case..."

"-I better go to the staff room and go through my lesson plans," she interjected, and Shin's expression immediately fell.

"Not quite what I had in mind," he admitted, standing up after she did and dusting his uniform off.

"I think I'm better off not knowing what _you _had in mind," she said suggestively, but before she could open the door off the roof Shin had thrown his weight against it and held it shut with an elbow as he leant on it.

"I take just as much offence at that as you do being called 'babe', _actually_," he told her sharply. "I'm not just some luststruck kid, Yankumi, and I resent you assuming I am. I've been by your side for almost two years now, I've saved your life, kept your secrets and put up with every wild and harebrained scheme you've come up with _to date_, and I'm prepared for two, ten or twenty more years of the same!" Suddenly he jerked and his hand came away from his head where it was leant to smacked against the door aggressively. "_Don't _take me lightly!" he said fiercely.

"Oh... I didn't mean it like that," she said a little meekly, rather shocked by Shin's sudden outburst. "I was just teasing, Shin," she explained, "but we'll call it even, okay?" In spite of this attempt to make amends, he simply continued to glare at her. "What?!" she cried, and then hearing a bell chime to mark the half-hour passing, decided to go for the quicked approach.

She grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face close, standing up on her toes so that their faces were less than a finger's width apart. "I'm sorry," she placated, and then gave him a shy, unassertive kiss on the mouth.

He gave in.

"Okay," he sighed, unable to resist an apology presented like _that_, and moved his weight off the door. She could've thrown him out of the way easily if she'd wanted to, but the fact that she didn't meant that she must respect him that much at least, he reasoned.

"See you soon!" she cheered as he cleared her path, and before he could respond she had already dashed away. He sighed, then smirked to himself; 'soon' was likely to be much sooner than she thought...

"Waah! You!" was what Yankumi was heard to scream when she arrived home at a normal time to find Sawada Shin sitting having a friendly chat with her Grandpa, like they were old buddies or something.

"Me," he replied swiftly, and then turned back to continue speaking to Ryuichiro.

"You... you... you didn't say anything about coming here _tonight_," she blabbered uselessly.

"It wasn't you I'm here to see," he replied without even looking her way, but even so Yankumi stomped over in a less than pleased temper.

"Kumiko," her grandfather said finally, raising a finger and gesturing that she stop. "I am having a discussion with this young master here, and would appreciate it if you left us alone." He spoke kindly, but nothing Kuroda Ryuichiro ever said was to be taken lightly, no matter how sweetly he said it.

Yankumi bit her lip furiously, and then stormed out of the room again in a great fuss.

"I think you may be in a little trouble later, friend," Ryuichiro jested, and Shin grinned.

"I'll have had worse, Kumichou," he remarked. "Your 'Ojou' never made anything easy for me."

Ryuichiro chuckled, feeling younger this night than he had in quite a while – perhaps the youthful company had a good effect on him, he thought. "She is quite the firecracker," he said, "she takes after me."

"I've heard," Shin replied, "but I doubt I'd love her quite as much if she didn't take so strongly from the Kuroda family." From their peaceful gaze on the scrolls on the wall behind Shin, Ryuichiro's eyes flicked keenly onto the boy before him.

"So you've gotten that far, eh?" he said carefully, his hand coming up to stroke against his bristled chin thoughtfully; no matter _who_ they were, anyone trying to take claim over his granddaughter had to be carefully considered.

"Hardly," Shin snorted. "I think I must have fallen for her at first sight."

"And you'd do-"

"Anything for her," Shin finished confidently, even ignoring the fact that he had spoken over a man with such status as the Kuroda Kumichou. "Just watch anyone try to stop me."

"Heh heh, such passion," Ryuichiro laughed. "I admire it." Shin crossed his arms slowly and took a few breaths.

"Not that I mean to propose anything," he said thoughtfully, "but I don't intend for her to marry anyone else." He waited and tried to gauge the boss's feelings about his statement, as he really had no idea how anyone else in the Kuroda family felt about his aspirations with their Ojou.

"That is rather convenient, then," Ryuichiro said with a smirk, "as I would not want anyone else to marry her either."

If Shin had been drinking he might have been likely to spit it back out in shock, but even though he wasn't he looked just as alarmed. "You're serious?" he said with a slightly nervous gulp.

"Not that Kumiko shouldn't follow her heart, but I would rest easy knowing it was with you," Ryuichiro explained. "So as an old man, talking far too much than is good for him, I say this to you – make her love you, Sawada, as I cannot think of anyone more deserving."

"Not, not even Shinohara?" he asked, still in shock from finding out just how strongly he was favoured, and a little nervous. When it was just himself he wanted to do this for everything was okay, but knowing he had an entire Yakuza mob rooting for him too was a little more worrying than it was encouraging.

"Tch, he was and is a good man, but he would not be able to handle Kumiko," the old man chuckled. "The blood of the Kuroda family runs too hot in her for someone like Shinohara. Just while the subject is upon him, he has left our services for now, but I assure you that he will be back before you finish university. I do not fear it, though, he is a skilled and valuable asset to the Kuroda... _and _Kumiko's heart will have moved on by then," he added slyly, and it was upon Shin to flush slightly with embarrassment.

"I... don't quite know what to say," Shin murmured. "Still, I did not come just to speak to you about... Kumiko." He still paused before he said it, as it felt strange to call Yankumi by her actual name after all this time as Yankumi.

"No, we were discussing further studies, were we not?" Ryuichiro reminded him.

"Yes, I wanted the opinion of someone I respected," he replied. "My father and I do not get on well, and I wouldn't go to him with this – I hope it does not bother you."

"Not at all, I am flattered."

"Well, how do I phrase it..." Shin said softly, more to himself as he tried to work out the right words, and eventually found none. "As someone who is 'not' intending to become a part of the Yakuza and 'definitely not' implicated in eventually taking up the leadership, what would be the most useful areas of study?... _Not _that I'm going to look into them," he added.

"The answer to that, Young Master, is simple," Ryuichiro said, his smile so wide the creases around his eyes deepened with his amusement. "You do anything you want."

"Hu-... what?"

"As I say to my granddaughter, I say it to you: find your own path, Sawada Shin. The only thing you need to do _anything_," he said, and it was clear what he was implying by that 'anything', and it quite possibly involved his own replacement, "is strong will, and conviction. Find them both, wherever you go, and I am sure you will accomplish anything you set your mind to."

Shin sat in perfect silence for a few moments, hardly even blinking as the words sunk in.

"Of course, Kumichou, I've been getting away with myself." Suddenly he hopped onto his knees and bowed. "Thank you for everything." After that he got up.

"Don't be a stranger," Ryuichiro bade him goodbye, and Shin flashed the elderly man a grin that made him realize just how lucky his granddaughter was.

"I won't, boss," Shin said at the door, but had not got two steps away from it when a hand lashed out, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away sideways, leaving Shin to yelp and shout in protest, and Ryuichiro laugh into his hands for a good while.

"Come on! Tell me what you were talking about!" Yankumi yelled as she threw Shin up against the wall of one of the empty rooms nearby.

"It was private!" he insisted, and would not back down. "I asked for his advice about personal matters and he gave it, that's the end of it." She did not release his t-shirt collar, so he simply scowled at her and said nothing.

"Uuuggh!" she groaned, releasing him at last and turning her back in a huff. "He's _my _grandpa," she muttered.

"It's _my _advice, okay," he retorted, crossing his arms and hunching back against the wall in that lazy, slanted way of his. "I don't have to tell you if I don't want to."

"Fine, then I'll see _you _tomorrow," she said stiffly, making it clear that he was going to be dismissed, at which Shin shrugged.

"Fine by me, I've already had you in my lap once today, I won't be greedy," he said smartly, and she whipped around to give him a sour look. "Don't scowl," he reprimanded, "you enjoyed it."

"OUT!" she barked, and Shin shook himself up and sauntered towards the door, stopping as he passed by.

"Bye, Yankumi," he murmured after he leant into the space between her neck and shoulder, almost letting skin touch skin, but not quite. He turned his back to walk away, and behind it Yankumi shivered from head to toe and grabbed the space his breath had warmed, pressing down on it hard to force away the tingling.

It had only taken Yankumi a single day to do most of the work persuading her student Shin into forgoing a life of crime (for now) and taking up further studies, but somehow she didn't feel at ease, and the very last day of her time with class 3 – 4 passed far too quickly and with far too many tears. Graduation wasn't even until the next day, but already she could tell it was going to be emotional.

She had no time for games with Shin, and her bad mood towards him from the previous night was no weaker – she was cross that a simple student could hold confidence with _her _grandpa, and that Shin had even been the cause for grandpa to dismiss her. She avoided and ignored him, and went straight home to work on her speech for graduation tomorrow.

As expected, come graduation ceremony, she, her family, _and _Fujiyama were all in floods of tears from the moment the first name was called. Yankumi held Fujiyama's hand tightly on one side, as the woman sobbed into her shoulder, and Yankumi herself sobbed into Kyou's, who was crying so loudly that other parents were looking around, then quickly turning back at the sight of a huge man who was evidently some kind of maniac or gangster sobbing his eyes out.

Fujiyama chose not to make a speech, but instead had the last performance of the whole boys' falsetto choir, and while parents were not captivated by the same-sung tune the club had been beginning each school day with, the entire assembly of students and their teachers all joined in for the final chorus, and the following applause was loud enough to shake down several banners.

Yankumi's speech was not so well performed, as she kept breaking away in the middle of it to sob hysterically, and there were a few strange anecdotes that only the Kuroda family seemed to have any understanding of, and for the most part Sawada Shin had his head buried deep in his hands.

All said and done, however, it was one of the happiest graduation ceremonies Shirokin had held in some time, and even the Principle was in tears by the end of it, and a final round of applause, added just for Yamaguichi Kumiko at the very end, was so deafening that parents and younger years began to flee the auditorium.

She was rubbing the floods of tears out of her eyes as the rest of the hall slowly filed outside, when she heard her family standing up from their own seats suddenly.

"We'll be outside, Kumiko," her grandpa said mysteriously. "You come and find us when you want to go ho-" he broke off suddenly, and there was some kind of furious whispering between Kyou and Ryuichiro.

"Why not just make your own way home?" Ryuichiro amended.

"Or not come home at all?" Kyou added, but when she looked up to ask them what on earth they were talking about, all she could see was a quickly cleared pathway through the chairs and their silhouettes in the doorway.

"You look like you could use cheering up," a voice said from behind, and she realized just what everyone's strange behaviour had been all about.

"Not now, Shin," she sniffed as she tried to dry her face on her sleeves, only to discover they were soaking wet already. "Don't ruin it."

"How could I ruin it?" he questioned, sitting sideways across a chair in front of her and leaning down on the back to face his no-longer teacher. "How could _anything_ ruin this day?" At that she felt herself welling up again, just to think that after all this time her very first class had graduated and she wouldn't ever see them again in the same old rotten classroom fighting and wearing their uniforms wrong.

There was a rustle, and a handkerchief appeared before her. "I was prepared this time," he joked, and pushed it into her hands.

"T-t-t-thanks," she stuttered, rubbing her face and then blowing her nose loudly; she offered it back to him when she was done with it, but Shin just raised his eyebrows at her and didn't move a muscle. She stuffed it into a pocket instead, and let her eyes shift downwards when she felt his gaze lingering on her too long.

"Well," he prompted eventually.

"What?" she questioned. "What are you staring at me for?!"

"We had a deal, lady," he said insistently. "You could use cheering up, and you _also _promised me a date."

"Whaaaat?" she gasped, almost falling off her folding chair. "You surely don't mean _today?!" _

"Why not?" he proposed. "We've got nothing else to do today, I know that for a _fact_, and I'd like to see you smile again before the end of the day."

"Muh," Yankumi made a muffled yelping sound, pressing her face against her forearm and wondering just how _saying _he wanted her to smile could make her smile.

"Come on," Shin said warmly, standing up and ruffling the back of her head. "What have you got to lose?" he paused for a breath, "Kumiko," he added.

"You... never did call me sensei, anyway," she mumbled underneath her arm, and felt his hand against her hair again.

"Yankumi suits you better," he remarked, carefully smoothing down her hair with his fingers. "You were always more of a friend than a teacher."

"Brat," she said grumpily, and then felt her heart race as he removed his hand and she felt him lean close over her, until his breath was on her skin, and then lips, as he pressed a kiss against the base of her neck, where flicks of her tattoo peeked through the collar of her top.

"Come on," he said against her skin, and each word sent a fresh shock of sensation along her spine. "Let me take you out." She shivered noticeably, and then bolted upright, Shin only just managing to get out of the way.

"When did you get so damn persuasive," she chattered awkwardly, her face bright red as she stood and began to march towards the door.

"Wait a sec!" he yelled, bounding after her and catching her by the arm.

"Dammit, Shin! I said I'd go didn't I-?!" she rushed, then muffled a yelp as he threw his arms around her and pulled her into tight hug, pausing for only a moment before ducking down to find her mouth with his.

"Thanks for everything, Yankumi," he said in barely more than a whisper, but it was easy to tell how happy he really felt. "You made it interesting."

"Oh, I don't know," she said with an exaggerated sigh, and moved away so she was only slung under one of Shin's arms. "Education is _so exciting_ when you put your mind to it." Shin snorted, but said nothing.

"You think it'll look suspicious if I come out with my arm around you?" he questioned when they had begun to walk towards the door.

"Don't worry, I've got everything planned out," Yankumi said confidently, and Shin was impressed with her cool attitude; maybe she was even okay about just coming out with the fact that they were basically... _together _now.

"Hiiyah! How dare you put your hands on a teacher like that!" a shrill scream caught Shin completely off guard, and before he knew it he had been pro-wrestling style thrown across the pathway, much to the disapproval of onlookers.

He scrambled to his feet, looking over his shoulder in a mixture of outrage and confusion at Yankumi, who just grinned mischievously and then dashed off in the direction of the staff car park.

Shin brushed himself down and ignored the murmurs and suspicious sounds people uttered around him. That was fine; if she wanted to run, he would _gladly_ chase her.

* * *

Ugh this is so entertaining to write, purely because it lacks substance. It's just Shin and Yankumi banter. CHEWING GUM CHEWING GUM FOR MAH BRAIN.


	6. Chapter 6

This is now unofficially named my bubblegum fanfiction. Lots of flavour, not much substance. Enjoy.  


* * *

"Hey there," he greeted, leaping down from on top of a wall he was sat upon, landing with a bounce by Yankumi's feet.

"Doooh?!" she yelped, surprised that he had caught her so quickly. She had taken so many back alleys that she'd been sure she would have lost him, but it had obviously come back to bite her as he'd just cut her straight off.

"I hope you're not planning to run again," he said. "I mean, you _did _agree and no one is watching anymore. Also, _what the hell_ you _threw_ me?!" he burst into a shout and scowled at her.

"What did you expect me to do? Standing there with your arm over my shoulders like I was your girlfriend," she grumbled.

"You _are_ my girl-"

"Eh!" she cut him off. "I said _a date_, I didn't promise you anything more," she warned him.

"Tell me again when it's over," he replied brusquely, smirking as he relaxed once more and started to follow her down the path.

"Oooh, one of these days you're _not _going to be able to do something you say you will," she muttered, a little embarrassed that she was fast becoming one of the things he _could _achieve when he put his mind to it.

"Is that so?" he bounced back the comment easily. "I'll deal with _that_ when it comes, then." Yankumi sighed heavily, and somewhat to her surprise Shin stepped sideways and caught her hand in his tightly. "So, you over all those tears yet?" he questioned almost sweetly. "I'm surprised you're still conscious, the amount of water you lost over these past two days."

"Tch," she snorted, twisting her hand in an attempt to unlatch it from his, but he wasn't letting go. In the end, the part of her that was enjoying walking like this with him won out over the part that objected, and she relaxed into the contact. It was just a hand, after all.

"Ooh, you're softening up," he remarked, but wouldn't say any more and just kept his fingers slotted between hers, swinging their hands gently back and forth as they walked.

"So... now what?" she questioned eventually, slipping her hand from his when they reached busier streets. This was an area that her face was known, and while she wasn't afraid or ashamed of a little scandal, all things considered, she did not want to be seen to be _flaunting _anything.

"Well I was thinking we could go for a bite to eat," Shin remarked, walking close enough beside her that their arms brushed together between steps occasionally. "Then maybe a bar, a cinema – if we have the time."

"No!" she replied. "Not _now _what, I mean... what _now.._."

"Those are the same words, Yankumi," he said in a voice half patronising and half sarcastic. "You just swapped them round.... ow! What was that for?!" he growled as she punched him in the arm.

"Don't be a smartass," she scolded. "I didn't mean what are we going to do _tonight, _I meant what are _you_ going to do now school is over."

"Ooooh," Shin acted. "I _was _planning on going to university, actually." Of course, since his meeting with her grandpa, they hadn't spoken about what he was going to do with his life now.

"You are?! Really, Shin?" Yankumi gushed. "_Really?_"

"Really," he echoed, with a smile for how much she really did care about his education. "I mean, I might as well."

"I _knew _you'd come around in the end!" she cheered, clinging to his arm and hugging it in her joy, not even noticing this was the kind of activity she was trying to avoid in public. "So what are you going to study? _Math_? Like your beloved sens-"

"Psychology, actually," he interrupted.

"Whaaah?!" Yankumi gasped, more confused than anything else. "Psychology?"

"Yes," he answered, somewhat pleased by how thrown she was. "It seemed interesting enough."

"But..."

"What did you expect?" he fired off at her. "Math, education, _law_...?" From the way her eyes flicked away from his the moment he said the last subject, Shin knew he'd hit the mark. "I'm not turning myself into a second Shinohara," he said coolly. "Not for you, not for the Kuroda group, not for anyone."

"No... no one expected you do," she mumbled, but the weak tone in her voice showed that some part of her had expected Shin to – for a lack of any other interest – follow either her own example as his teacher _and _love interest, or law to compete against Shinohara in his own field.

"The Kuroda will have its lawyer back soon enough," Shin told her quietly. "I've head that _he _won't be away for too long. He'll be bored of life on the straight soon enough." Yankumi opened her mouth to speak and try to rebut his claims, but Shin carried on and wouldn't let her get a word in. "What they _are _going to need..." he suggested slyly, "is a leader."

"_Shin_," she cut in tensely. "You are _not_-"

"Not what? I'm just speculating," he said, shrugging away the accusation. "I'm going to study psychology at university, remember?" Upon closer examination, she really wasn't sure that someone already as skilled at influencing people as Shin was should be given the chance to learn even more opportunities to learn the art of de-constructing personalities.

"Ah..." words failed her, and around then they passed by a place to eat that seemed to take Shin's fancy, so before she could put together some kind of coherent argument, Yankumi had already been ushered inside and sat down at a table.

"Look, Shin," she tried to reason after their orders had been taken, but he made a zipping motion across his mouth at her.

"I said there wouldn't be any shop talk on dates," he insisted cheekily. "So there'll be no more about school, university _or_ future leaderships, okay?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid," she snapped, and Shin leant across the table on one elbow, giving her a plainly affectionate look.

"How _should _I talk to you then?" he asked flirtatiously, and she gave him a look that would've knocked out a lesser man. "Don't be like that," he berated, and underneath the table his foot slid out and hooked around hers playfully. "Why don't you just chill out and enjoy it?"

"Enjoy what?" she asked coldly.

"Being on a date, you moron," he growled, and the nearly possessive snarl to his voice was actually flattering in its own way.

"Eeesh," she sighed. "No reason to get snappy about it." The pressure of the contact of Shin's foot and leg against hers below the table increased, and his tension did anything but lower with her suggestions.

"Don't think I won't lean across this table and kiss you," he warned under his breath, quiet enough that only she could hear him. "In broad daylight, in front of _all_ these people." It really was an outright threat, and not a romantic gesture.

"You wouldn't dare," Yankumi retorted, but the look Shin gave her left her less than assured.

"Try me," he dared. "The worst that'll happen is you get a kiss, and _that_ never hurt anyone," he joshed, and his partner's expression moved from embarrassment to displeasure.

"You lean across this table and I'll knock you into the next one," she threatened with a smile, grinning as a server approached with their drinks.

"Oh, you should know by now that I play rough too," he remarked blankly, sipping his drink with an equally amiable expression, but neither of them doubted the seriousness of the other.

"We'll see about that, won't we?" she said tensely, and while the look in Shin's eyes suggested there was much more to the situation, he spoke no more on it after that, and instead flitted between brighter conversation topics and discussion of the futures of his friends. For this lightning of subject matter the time passed quicker, and before Yankumi knew it the day had slid away and it was dark outside.

Shin paid for the meal by his own insistence, and by _her_ own insistence there really was _no _harm in going to a bar for a drink or two to celebrate the end of school. Even if it was a little sad for a student and teacher to celebrate it with each other and not their own kind, although it was obvious that their situation was not exactly the same as that, and it really did depend on what happened afterwards.

Especially because what _did _happen after the first couple of drinks was several drinks more, and soon enough, the bar had closed for the night and they had been turned out onto the streets, Yankumi many times more inebriated than her younger companion, as he had stopped drinking a long time ago – _he _wanted to be able to remember this night, even if she might recall parts of it with slightly fuzzy edges.

"Wher' are we goin'?" she rasped, leaning heavily into Shin's side as he held her by the shoulders and walked her through the dark streets.

"Home," he replied shortly.

"Whos' home?" she questioned blithely.

"Mine," he answered, and tried very hard to ignore the 'ooooOOOoo' sounds she made in his ear. "I don't feel like giving you back just yet," he explained. "That doesn't mean anything though."

"Mmmhmmm," Yankumi sighed, letting her head roll against Shin and closing her eyes for a few moments.

"Oi," he jostled her with a step. "Don't go to _sleep_, woman."

"Don'chuu talk to _me_ like 'dat," she said sloppily. "You should _respec_ your precious senseii."

"Ohhh I respect you," he parroted patronisingly, firing off either apologetic or intimidating looks to any critical glares that came their way.

"Good," she groaned, slumping against him a little more, and then regaining her balance and standing up straight again. "Ar' we there yet?"

"No," he sighed. "You'll know when we are."

"_Hooow_?" she asked dopily, the usual authority in her voice swapped for a kind of childish tone that made her sound much younger than she was; like this, people would probably have thought they were the same age, Shin suspected.

"Oh _hush_," he groaned, and sped up their pace, eager to get her weight off him – or at least change it to a more favourable arrangement. At least something that didn't keep almost pushing him into trash cans.

When at last they finally arrived at the end of the long walk across town back to his place, what Shin wanted to do most at that moment was actually just fall into bed and _sleep_.

Unfortunately for that particular plan, Yankumi was having no such thing, and upon arriving in the flat began charging around speaking in a very loud and animated way, yet remained completely incomprehensible. Shin chose to let her bustle around amusing herself in whatever way she saw fit for the time being, and flopped down on his own bed to catch his breath.

"Hey, hey, hey! Are you listening to me?!" she asked on the tail end of a sentence, in a shrill, authorative voice.

"Nope," Shin answered calmly through a yawn, and did not flinch when Yankumi suddenly threw herself down on the bed across him. "Hey there," he grunted uncomfortably as she stretched out longways across his stomach and then rolled onto her back, then, not liking that so much, rolled back onto her stomach and then finally crawled so she too was longways on the bed.

"Heeeey," she slurred, a grin that could only be described as naughty on her face. Sure, it quite suited her, but then again Shin didn't know quite what to expect from this mood. She was a volatile creature at the best of times. He tested the waters, reaching out to cup her cheek, and when her eyes closed in compliance he moved to complete the kiss, pressing his mouth against her almost lazily; stroking his tongue methodically over hers, as if every aspect of it was carefully planned out.

Yankumi responded a little more clumsily, but no less passionately, and shifted her weight until she was almost on top of him, with one of her hands gradually tangling in his hair. They parted and he let out a soft, wet breath against her lips.

"I think we should go to sleep," he murmured disjointedly, angling to kiss her again and losing whatever train of thought he'd gathered, then running a hand all the way up the curve of her back. He repeated the action, then became frustrated with the barrier of fabric between them and slipped his hand underneath her top to feel her soft, patterned skin.

Yankumi gasped against his mouth and tightened her hand in his hair, which in turn made Shin groan and roll his hips up against her.

"_No_, really..." he rasped as he pulled away again and grit his teeth tight. "We should stop."

"Wha? _Why?" _she protested, softening her grip and going in for another kiss, which Shin accepted, but withdrew from again eventually and turned his face away. "Oi, whas the problem?" she said grumpily, pushing down some of her weight on top of him and making him buckle at the hips again. "I'm not sayin' _no_ here, Im ready to..."

"_I'm _saying no," he said stonily. "You're too drunk."

"What?!" she almost yelled directly in his face. "I'm _fine_!" she insisted. "Who'se you to tell me if _im _too drunk or not?!" In retaliation she tried to push more aggressively for a return to the previous activities, but instead Shin sat upright and even held her back.

"It's not just about whether _you _want it," he told her crossly. "I'm notletting the first time we do _anything _together happen because you've had a drink, okay?" He glared at her stubbornly. "It's got to be a proper decision, so you can't make it all boozed up and," he paused and looked her up and down, "_in the mood_," he finished. "I'm not going to fall for it. So you really should just go to sleep, because until you're sober I'm not going to touch you again."

Yankumi's mouth flapped a little in shock; this was more or less the _last_ thing she'd expected Shin to say, as until that point she'd been very much convinced that he was so completely besotted that he not only wanted to push every advance he could, but wouldn't reject anything should _she _be the aggressor.

She was still speechless when he stood up in a bit of a huff and started to walk off, when finally her vocal capacity caught up with her. "Hey! Where're you goin?"

"To take a _cold shower_," he muttered, rubbing his forehead wearily and pawing at the door of the bathroom. "Find something to crash in and get some sleep, eh?" he suggested wanly as he opened the door and the motion-detector light clicked on.

"Uh... okay," she said weakly, a little too confused to be able to do anything but nod along.

After Shin had closed the door behind him and she heard the sound of running water start up – he really _was _taking a cold shower, she scrambled to the edge of the bed and perched on it for a moment, trying to process what had just happened, and then finding herself rather embarrassed by it all. She jumped up and then dashed across to the dresser, ripping open the doors and finding the things she'd slept in earlier in the week returned to their place.

She shrugged out of her own clothes hurriedly and pulled the t-shirt and exercise shorts on as quickly as she could, worried that Shin would come out of the shower before she was in bed and able to pretend she was asleep. As it was, the water shut off just as she'd tied the drawstring on the shorts and she performed a full lengthways leap into the bed, shuffling underneath the duvet and burrowing her face in a pillow. The door still hadn't opened so she was safe now, and could just pretend she was asleep and avoid a confrontation – or at least put it off until morning.

The door opened a little while later and she heard Shin emerging, hopefully... 'calmed down' by his shower. Now that she was changed and actually _in _a bed she was beginning to feel sleepy, and although her heartbeat increased a little when she felt him shift over the covers and settle himself down on the other half of the bed, he apparently relaxed enough to not be bothered by their sharing the same mattress and even covers.

She could tell it really had been a cold shower because even from the other side of his double she could feel the cold air around him, coming off his damp skin as he turned onto his side and his breathing slowed. She was tempted to reach out and feel him, just to see if he was cold to the touch like she imagined, but stopped herself and turned to face away from him, trying to put his presence out of her mind so she could actually fall asleep.

While she thought that with this much tension in the air she'd _never _be able to sleep, she was actually fast asleep long before Shin, who rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling in the dark for a long time, wondering if he'd done the right thing. It would have been so easy to let Yankumi get swept along tonight because she was a bit drunk, and his own body had likely wanted to kill him when he stopped it, but every time he thought it over he came to the same conclusion – that he didn't want their _first times _being in any way caused by alcohol. Perhaps it was selfish or somehow vain, but he wanted the decision to be completely and honestly hers. He wanted her to want him without anything else being even partly responsible for it.

He heard her rolling over and sighing softly, and as he was sure she was asleep let himself look across and try to pick out her face in the darkness. If he ever had any doubts about what he was doing, or what he was trying to get himself into, he only really needed to look at her at times like this to be reminded of the reason why again.

He loved her.

He just _did_. He'd loved her for so long he'd grown used to it; until it had become background.

She moved again restlessly in her sleep, shifting closer to him in the bed first, then rolling over completely, flipping almost like a fish and turning her back to him. He judged it safe – seeing as she was still under – to move across and close the space between their bodies a little more, reaching out to drape an arm over her body protectively, feeling the drunken warmth of her body under him; he sighed with a drowsy smile, comfortable at last and counted her breaths until he too dozed off.

Yankumi woke in the morning to find her face plastered against Shin's bare shoulder and one of her legs somehow tangled between his, and her body in general far too hot and sweaty.

"Bleerg," she moaned as she peeled her face off his skin and pushed the still-sleeping male away until he rolled onto his back and started snoring. It was about then that everything came rushing back from the previous night, and she turned pink from her hairline to her chin; thank _goodness _Shin had been responsible, she thought worriedly, or who knows might've happened between them. It was only the first date!

She leapt out of the bed, grabbed her clothes and almost threw herself into the bathroom, slamming the door but somehow not waking up Shin, who stretched out in the newly available space and continued to snore. He did gradually become conscious to the sound of the shower going, and cracked open an eye curiously as she emerged in a cloud of steam, already dressed in her things from last night.

"You're not going are you?" he murmured as she started putting on her shoes.

"Yes I am," she answered coldly. "I really think it's better if I do." Shin sat up suddenly, and Yankumi realised with a terrible shock that he was actually naked from the waist up, and it'd been his bare _chest _she was sleeping so happily against half an hour ago, not just a shoulder. She stared at him in blank shock, and tried to recall if he had always looked like that, or if he'd been working out... she _swore_ he used to be much scrawnier, although his build was still pretty slim.

"Calm down," he said a little grumpily. "I'm sure you remember _nothing _happened, so there's nothing to go off in a fuss about."

"Nothing? _Nothing!?" _she yelled, and then pointed accusingly at his lightly-toned torso. "That's not nothing!"

Shin slowly followed the line of her arm and looked down at his own body, and then back up at her with an expression that could only be described as 'very worried for your sanity' on his face.

"_What?_" he practically spat the word.

"Well I mean _you're_ all... and we were..." she babbled, and Shin covered his face in both hands and rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Stop talkin' shit, Yankumi," he sighed, and then flopped back down in the bed. "Come back to bed."

"NO!" she squealed, and was about to go to the door when a shoe flew across the room and slammed into the closed door loudly. She glanced back and saw Shin sitting up again with a less than patient look on his face.

"Don't make me get up and _drag _you back here," he warned. "I'm not letting you walk out like this."

"What? You don't have any rights to control when I stay or go," she retorted, and with a grumpy grunt Shin got up – thankfully he _was _wearing pyjama bottoms – and stomped across the room to her.

"I'm not trying to control you," he hissed as he put his hand against the door and leant on it, "but I _can _stop someone I care about from running away from me and leaving us on unsure terms." He stared at her so directly Yankumi wondered whether he had _any _modesty, and she tried not to jump when he lifted his other arm and put his hand on her shoulder. "I don't know what you're freaking out about," he said carefully, "but if you _tell _me then we can sort it out, okay?"

"I... I..." she mumbled. "Well it's just staying the _night _and last night and what you said and what I did and it was just a _first date_..."

"Right," he cut her off. "How about this? We leave everything from last night where it is, _last night_, and just get on with today?"

"What do you mean?" she questioned a little uncertainly.

"Well _now _you've dragged me up I guess I mean breakfast," he said with a grunt, and then his eyes flashed back towards the bed for a second. "_Unless _you want to go back to bed," he propositioned, and Yankumi's eyes widened as her blush returned.

"Uhhhhbreakfastsoundslikeagoodidea!" she blurted, and at last stepped away from the door and dropped her intention to leave.

"Jeese," Shin sighed as he went and started to rumage through his clothes for a shirt. "You think you could try being any _less _trouble to date?"

"We're not d-dating!"

"Oh yeah? Well, we went on a date yesterday, I paid for everything, you stayed over here, wore my clothes and we're going to have breakfast together. What _are _we doing, if it's not dating?" he said haughtily, finally choosing a t-shirt and dragging it over his head before grabbing boxers and jeans. He shot her a glance over his shoulder that confused her until he dropped his pyjamas and she realized it'd been a _warning_.

"What the fuck?!" Shin yelled as he spun around at the sound of a loud crack: Yankumi had bashed her forehead against the door. "Why did you do _that_?" he questioned irately as he snatched up his jeans and stepped into one leg; like the woman didn't see guys four times his size wandering around in fundoshi on an almost _daily _basis.

"Jayabuhdar..." she gibbered.

"Oh _grow up_," he scolded, fastening his belt and checking his hair in a mirror. "I can hardly believe you're really twenty-five sometimes, Yankumi."

"Don't talk to me like that," she complained as she started opening cupboards and looking for things to eat, "you're what, eighteen."

"Nineteen," he corrected. "I had a birthday in March."

"Same difference, brat," she responded. "Kids these days _never _respect their elders.... _Well_," she said as she slammed shut two cupboard doors at the same time. "You have _nothing _to eat, so I don't see how breakfast is going to happen."

"We'll buy something then," he suggested.

"We, 'we', _we_," she echoed scathingly. "We're not-"

"Not what? A couple?" he said sharply, and crossed the room to face her, then held her face in his hands as he very carefully explained, "If you really _do _need it spelling out for you," he paused, taking a breath and making sure he was going to say what he wanted to properly. "I _love_ you," he explained half-patronisingly, which sort of took the edge of the romance.

"I _want _you to be my girlfriend, or whatever... a couple, _together_..." he added as it seemed too strange to call a woman six years his senior a 'girl'- anything. "You know what I mean," he sighed, and then shook her suddenly. "If I have to ask you before you'll agree, then I'll ask you every day from now on until you agree. _So, _Yamaguichi Kumiko... will you go out with me?"

To remind her of her fondness for him, he kissed her, and it was half way through the natural habit of kissing him back that Yankumi realized that she _did _actually like him.

Sure, she didn't feel the same way as she did about Shinohara – Shin didn't make her giggle and fluster like he had, and she had never ever _tried _to make Shin like her by behaving a certain way, like she had with Shinohara. That was what had thrown her, because being around Shin didn't make her feel like she thought she was meant to with someone she liked. Some of the time she just wanted to punch his stupid nose in.

However, she was usually totally at ease with Shin. She didn't have to put on an act of any kind, and could speak to him honestly about anything that was worrying her. She went to him with problems, she went to him when she was upset and she even used to talk to him about Shinohara for god's sake – thinking back it must have been awkward for him, if he really loved her for so long.

She didn't know quite what to say for a moment, so when he pulled away from the kiss she stared up at him for a few blank moments. Then she pulled him into a crushing bear hug.

"_Yes_, then," she said with a grin, and Shin weakly begged her to let go, as he couldn't breathe. "It'll be a lot of trouble, but I reckon you'll probably give me more trouble if I _don't _go out with you, am I right?"

"Can't... breathe..." he rasped, and eventually she got the message and dropped him, at which point he collapsed on the floor and gasped for breath.

"Jesus, what _the fuck_ is wrong with you sometimes, Yankumi," he growled, and in response she just ruffled his hair and chuckled as if he'd just complimented her. "No, really," he groaned as he stood up again. "If I didn't unconditionally and irrationally love you a _lot_, then I'd probably get the hell out of this place."

"Is it usual for you to insult women after you've begged them to go out with you?" she questioned aloofly.

"Is it usual to crack someone's ribs when you accept them?" he retorted bitterly, but did not expect the answer he received.

"Well I _did _once dislocate Shinohara's shoulder..."

Shin realised with a sinking feeling that he'd just done for relationships the wildlife equivalent of waking up a hibernating Kodiak bear wearing a suit made of salmon and honey.

Oh well, he thought. He could use the exercise.

* * *

Funnily enough I didn't actually plan things to turn out like this at all, I've had like a million and one lemons writing themselves in my head because I'm a pervert and that's what I do, but somehow I feel much, much happier with this turn of events. It feels more apropriate.

Leave a review please! I can see the reader stats so I know that there are PLENTY of people reading, just you cheeky fuckers are all take and no give. What _would _Shin say? :P


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks to everyone for their kind reviews -- _wow _there were a lot last chapter, more than the previous two put together! Thank you all so much! Thanks also for being paitent with me, I've had an awful lot of work on recently, and I'll be going travelling in the summer so if this isn't finished by then (I don't know if it will) there'll be a 6 week hiatus _minimum_.

Anyway, less doom and gloom, more Shinkumi!

* * *

Yankumi stood in front of the mirror and turned one way, then the other. She twisted around and tried to look over her shoulder, but cracked her neck and let out a yelp of dismay.

It was date night.

Yes, date night with her once-student and now-technically-boyfriend Sawada Shin, and if she was unsure of herself before that concern was doubled in this state of dress. Shin had not seen her often out of her tracksuit – he certainly hadn't seen her '_out of her tracksuit' _yet either, but she knew very well that she was playing it risky if she stayed in this choice of clothes.

Her top was _not_ low cut on the breasts, or the stomach, and nor was it tight-fitting or in any other way scandalous. The problem was this; the back fell low. And when the back came low on shirts _her _back was visible underneath, and she happened to have a particularly visible tattoo on that part of her body now.

The places she was intending to go that night were all places she was known as 'Ojou' or not known at all, so a display of her background was no problem, but Shin being there _was_, because if there was one part of her that he could never, _ever _keep his hands off of it was her back. She knew it could've been worse, and a hand on the back of her shoulder was hardly comparable to being groped inappropriately, but as a young and hot-blooded youth Shin _really _did not need any more encouragement.

She didn't change, though.

She left her house by the back door and ran a few blocks through the dark streets, vaulting over a park bench on which Shin sat patiently with his arms crossed.

"Why do you insist we meet like this?" he said tiredly as she landed with a bounce beside him on the bench. "Your family know you're seeing me."

"Of course they don't!" she retorted. "I've kept this _top secret _and it's gonna stay that way for now... jeese, the trouble I'd get into if they knew I was..."

"Yankumi, I'm telling you; they know," he insisted blankly.

"You haven't told them have you?" she accused crossly.

"_No_," he sighed. "But they still know. It's very obvious, you know." She laughed this off boldly, scorning the very thought that her family could have seen through her sneaky methods, and Shin sighed into his hands. However, he perked up when he noticed the cut of her shirt.

"Oh?" he hummed warmly, reaching out to run his hand across the exposed band of tattooed skin. "You trying to get me hot or something?" he taunted, leaning close to her ear so that his breath tickled.

"Eeeesh! Don't think everything is about _you_," she rebutted. "I just happened to _like _this so-" she cut off as her mouth became otherwise occupied, Shin pulling her across and into a hungry kiss.

"It's working," he breathed hoarsely after he released her. "Suits you."

"Huuur," she moaned in incoherent and flustered response, snapping back to her senses and scrubbing her mouth guiltily. "Damn, don't surprise me like that," she grumbled, at which Shin slowly dragged her out of her seat and across his lap.

"So it's okay if I warn you?" he baited as he pulled her close, her legs dangled across his for a moment before he lifted her hips and settled her weight on him. "Like this?" he said softly, running one hand all the way up her back until his palm met skin. "_I'm going to kiss you,_" he told her, just before she closed the distance between them herself and closed a fist in his jacket collar. It was never one-sided between them for long.

A little time slipped away making out, until Shin finally tore himself away from her as if he were ripping off a plaster.

"Are we going to go somewhere?" he questioned. "Or are you deliberately trying to make me drag you home straight away?"

"Eeeh cool it, hot shot!" she scolded, hopping up and straightening her clothes out as Shin rose with a slightly more pained expression.

"It's not healthy to toy with a young man like that," he groaned as he pulled his fingers through his head and took a few deep breaths of fresh air. "You're going to give me brain bleeds."

"Nose bleeds more like," she quipped. "Come on, lets go to a bar then."

"No bars," he replied simply.

"What? Why not?" she challenged, stepping close to him in an entirely unromantic way and giving him a cold stare.

"Because," he elucidated, "you get grabby when you're drunk and I refuse to let you get away with it. _And_," he added on the fly, "I don't want to be in a position where I have to turn you down tonight." He gave her a heated look.

Yankumi stormed off and began walking off in the direction of the main street, Shin jogging after her to catch up.

"You're getting awfully ahead of yourself, you know," she huffed. "We might be going out, but that doesn't mean I'm jumping into bed with you."

"Hah!" Shin snorted. "More like a crawl. You know it's been two months, right?"

"Two?" she gasped, shocked. "Has it really been that long?"

"Two tomorrow," he informed her. "Snails jump into bed. faster than you do."

"Hey!" she snapped, slapping him on the arm with a scowl. "Don't be like that."

"Oh come on, I only say it because I know you can take it," he retorted, half-grinning as he stepped closer and grabbed her hand in his. "You know the fact that you'll have me is more than enough." He squeezed his fingers around her palm, and Yankumi felt that rush in her chest that single-handedly beat down every objection she had to being with Shin.

"So what _are_ we going to do?" she questioned again a little wearily.

"Whatever, I don't mind so long as there's no drinking," he responded. "I mean, one or two's fine, but I'm not pulling you home by your heels...." he shot her a knowing look, "again."

"Hey! You got the prize for that Sake-drinking contest, didn't you?" she fired off proudly.

"What the hell would I want with a bottle of 40 year old scotch?" he questioned acridly. "Not to mention _you _drank it last week."

"I shared it with Kyou and Wakamatsu," she defended. "I _offered_ it to you but you weren't interested."

"I don't like whiskey," he reminded her; in fact, he was an occasional drinker at best. "You know that."

"You'll learn," she insisted. "You can't make the strongest bonds of brotherhood with your aniki unless you drink with them."

"I'm not making you my _brother_, sweetheart," he quipped, and Yankumi scowled, because while she objected to being called romantic, sappy nicknames like that, she couldn't stop him using them on the rare occasions he did – and they were usually more sarcastic than sickly.

As they walked down the street they veered to one side to move around two men walking shoulder to shoulder in the opposite direction, but the men stepped in front of them, and they were forced to stop.

"Well, well, well," one of the men began in a threatening tone, and Shin tightened his hand around Yankumi's in warning. "Doesn't this look like the celebrity couple of the Yakuza world?"

"Couple! Who's a couple!" Yakumi blasted, while Shin sighed into his free hand wearily.

"I keep telling you, everyone knows," he explained, but she would have none of it.

"The Young Master Red Lion and Kuroda's Ojou," the larger of the two men remarked. "Don't they look the _cutest_. Hey, Red Lion, what's it like bangin' the-"

"I'd shut up now," Shin interrupted. "You really don't want to finish that."

"What, you think I'm scared of an uppity little brat like you?" he barked, his eyes bulging as he attempted to stare Shin down.

"It ain't me you should be worried about pissing off," Shin commented, releasing Yankumi's hand and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Puuutthhh!" The man blew through his lips, flapping them like a horse in scorn before quickly raising a fist and trying to throw a punch at Shin, who remained completely still and did not even blink as the man hit the floor.

"See?" he said, his arms still crossed as Yankumi dusted off her fist and stepped back from the fallen heckler.

"Well that's just _sad_," the remaining fellow – a little shaken, but retaliating in all the wrong ways – said cruelly. "You have to get your girlfriend to fight your battles for you? Some Yondaime _you'll_-"

"He is NOT going to be the...!" Yankumi began to scream as she lunged towards him, but Shin unhooked one of his arms and held it across her chest, stopping her from hitting him. He said nothing, but gave her a look that seemed to call her off, so she relaxed and let her fists fall.

"Heh! Can't eve-" the last man began to mock, but never had time to finish his word before a powerful punch hit him right under the chin and sent his head flying back, knocking him out with a single brain-rattling punch. Now Shin rubbed the tingling sensation away from his own knuckles, and Yankumi picked up the man she had downed to throw on top of the Shin's victim.

"Don't do _that_," he berated as she stacked one guy on top of the other. "What do you think you're in a kung-fu movie or something?"

"It's neater this way," she explained perkily, walking past the two who now only took up half of the pavement. "See, we can get past much easier now." Shin groaned, but walked on before too many people took notice of what happened – this was a rough area anyway, so fights were common, but it wasn't good to be _too _recognised if they wanted a relatively uneventful night.

"Whatever you say," he grunted and then his eyes trailed behind them as they passed a tattoo parlour.

"I'm thinking about getting some work done," he remarked when she slowed down with him and stared quizzically after his line of sight.

"What?" she muddled, and then eventually realized what he meant. "Oh no," she said forebodingly. "Oh no you don't, _I _know what you're thinking about and..."

"Oh fuckin' relax will you?" he snapped, although it wasn't angrily, just a sharp comment to shut her up before she got ahead of herself – as was her habit to do. "I was only thinking of something on my arm, you know, half a sleeve or something. Oh," he added, "and _you're _not one to talk about not getting ink," he taunted, putting a hand on her shoulder and rubbing his fingers very conspicuously across her shoulderblade.

"You know it's not the same," she replied stiffly. "Not to mention you shouldn't go jumping into something like that. It's for life you know, and it's _not _just some accessory either. They're meant to-"

"To have meanings, yeah. I know," he finished for her. "I have been around you for the past three months or so, you know." He leant closer. "I'd hope you remember me from all those dates."

"Oh yeah, _I remember_," she sighed sarcastically, and then stopped suddenly outside a small place that served both food and drink. "Come on now, we've been wandering around long enough."

"You're the boss," he answered, and followed her inside. Then, some time later, some time much later, after Shin and Yankumi had eaten and drunk and talked and laughed; after he had walked her back home and kissed her goodnight and gone himself and stared at the ceiling until he sheer bored himself to sleep.

After the next day had passed, and he had gone to classes and studied the human mind and she had gone to school and nurtured them. After Shin had gone to a certain friend of the Kuroda family and spoken to him and bargained with him and then stripped off and sat in a chair for him.

It was perhaps a week or so later, when Yankumi noticed – a good few hours into the date – that Shin was wearing a bandage on his arm. She did do it by accident though, having slapped him lightly for some small offence, and he nearly jumped through the roof.

"Fucking hell, Yankumi!" he snarled as he went to grab his shoulder, and then stopped and bit his lip hard to try and distract himself. "Of all the places you could hit me!"

"What? Wait, _what?_" she questioned, confused and alarmed until she realized what that reaction was. _Remembered _what that reaction was.

"Oh you cheeky sonuvabitch!" she scorned. "You've started it, haven't you?"

"Started _what_?" he snapped, his temper no better off for the pain echoing in daggers across his skin.

"That sleeve you were talking about," she said lowly. "The _tattoo_."

"Yeah," he replied bluntly, his breath short and flustered. "I did say last time we were out."

"You said you were _thinking _about it," she recalled, a less than content frown twisting at her lips.

"And I decided I would," he led on from her statement as naturally as he could. "It's my goddam arm." He placed his palm against it tenderly and winced. "Damn, woman, what the hell was that about..." he groaned, then yelped again as she hit him in the other arm. "Now what the fuck was THAT for?" he yelled, and then found a finger pointed accusingly in his face.

"Don't you fuckin' swear at me!" she growled, the accent of her family (mostly Kyou, as her Grandpa was well spoken for a Yakuza) coming through strong.

"Don't swear at me if you're telling me not to swear at you, ya hypocrite!" he retorted viciously, and the finger remained pointed.

"I _know _it hurts, Shin, but don't yell at me like some goddam piece of trash, geddit?" she responded coldly, and although the anger was still present in his eyes, he bit his tongue for the time being. There was a time you did _not _scream in the face of Yamaguichi Kumiko, and this was one of those times – she did also have a point, he supposed.

"Jeese... I thought you'd stabbed me or something," he muttered darkly as he attempted to cool off, twisting his fingers tightly in his hair as he leant against the bar; neither of them seemed to notice the large circle of empty space around them, that had rapidly cleared in the course of their argument.

"If you'd _told _me you'd got it under there I wouldn't have hit you there," she pointed out. "I wasn't _trying _to hurt you."

"I didn't think it was that important," he murmured, and then after realizing that she would not buy that as an excuse even if he put ice cream on top and said please. "I... wanted to wait until it was done," he confessed. "That's what _you _did, didn't you?"

"Well... yeah..." she answered reluctantly. "But you know..."

"Don't say it was different," he said icily. "It's all ink, Yankumi." He still called her by that nickname, even now they had long since stopped being teacher and student and became something entirely different. It was hard to get out of habits, and it _was _the first nickname she'd been pleased to have. She was fond of it, and he knew it still meant a lot to her.

"Humph," she huffed, frowning into her drink. "I wish you'd said you were going to do it for sure," she said. "I just _know_ you're trying to sneak off into into the Kuroda group sometimes. It all starts with one little bit of work, and you've got a full irezumi before _I _know it."

"Sneak off? _They _come after _me_," he retorted, and wasn't at all wrong. For someone with no official affiliation to the group, Shin was increasingly on the contact list any time there was an emergency that required the full network being briefed. Hell, sometimes he was called up when only the most important people were allowed to know. Sometimes Yankumi wasn't even there, she was at school, but Shin had far less classes and plenty of free time.

He was _almost_ used to getting a call from someone from that house, informing him of a conflict and warning him that there might be rival groups after him – that he better come over to confront them with Kyou and the others, so that he wasn't ambushed off the street and out of their protection.

"They do not!" she insisted.

"Yankumi... _Love_," he pleaded tiredly, "they do. Kyou was begging me to come out to a toba _tonight_, but I said I was seeing you."

"WHAT?"she shrieked. "You said-"

"Relax," he interjected. "_One_, he knows we're going out already, and _two_, I didn't use your stupid name either, I just said I had plans."

"Well... going out to gambling houses isn't really the same as being _properly _involved with them, at least."

"He wanted to pay me back for being tangled up in the business with those Inukami freaks," Shin added, and tried not to laugh when her jaw dropped. The Inukami affair had involved some slightly bizarre okatu-turned-criminal sect of some kind kidnapping the dog Fuji and proclaiming him their new god. Yankumi had been at school when the plot was uncovered, and as the dog's closest (albeit unwillingly so) friend, Shin was called upon to help find and rescue the ugly thing.

"You were there for that?" she asked dumbly.

"I just _said_," he stated bluntly. "You know how that animal is obsessed with me. Kyou said it was a personal favour and all. Why he thought repayment would be going to a gambling house and winning _him _money was appropriate is beyond me, but still." Yankumi continued to stare at him blankly, until Shin finally got fed up and reached out to close her mouth for her.

"You'll start collecting flies in there," he remarked sceptically, and she swatted away his hand.

"Jeesh... I keep missing out on stuff now that you're not in my classroom every weekday," she murmured, and without realizing, settled her hand into his, outstretched on top of the bar.

"That can be fixed you know," he said cheekily, and she knew exactly what he was referring to.

"You're _not_ moving in, or vice versa!" she said scandalously, and he sniggered at her carbon-copy reaction.

"Darn" he said in mock-disappointment. "Well, at the very least. If you come back with me tonight, maybe I'll let you see what's under the bandages," he hinted.

"I _know _what's under there," she replied distastefully. "Blood and scabs and pain, that's what. Believe me, _I know_. I think, seeing as you've already started, that I might just wait until you finish, eh?" Shin sighed and rolled his eyes. He wished he could say he missed it when she wasn't there in bed with him, but she wasn't there enough in the first place to miss. It was all still mostly _want_.

"Don't make that face," she chided, and he just gave her a dirty look. As if being punched in the tattoo wasn't bad enough. He surprised himself with his own patience for this woman, sometimes.

"So I'm taking you home as usual?" he said morosely.

"Gosh, you're so grumpy," she commented. "If I'd known you were going to be like this I would've let you go to a toba instead."

"Oh yeah? Then you should do something to cheer me up. You _are_ meant to be my girlfriend after all."

"Oh as if _that _wasn't an obvious hint," she said dryly, but still lifted his hand in hers and brushed her lips against the back of his fingers. "You! Cheer up," she ordered, and her bossy tone made him smile, even if the order itself hadn't.

"I don't think that will do it," he jested, leaning closer, his movements full of suggestion. "It'll take a little more than-" she cut him off with a kiss, just like he'd been hoping, and he raised his hand to squeeze her shoulder, trailing his hand up her neck heavily and making her push back against him. Sometimes if he took a step back and looked at his situation he could hardly believe he'd got to this place, a situation where he could openly kiss Yankumi like this, to be in a relationship with her, to just have all this. Some luck he must have had.

"Come on, then," she announced after she ended the kiss, and ordered the two of them cups of Sake. "Alcohol is good for wounds."

"It's good for _disinfecting _them, Yankumi, not..." Shin pointed out, but she either didn't care or didn't want to listen, and instead pushed the cup his way.

"That's just what they _want _you to think," she teased, nudging him in the ribs playfully. "Drink up!" Shin looked at the glass, and then back at her. Why the hell not, he decided, it'd been a while since he'd let her get him drunk.

The next morning, Kumiko awoke to a pounding knock on her bedroom door.

"Oooooojjjoooouuuu!" Tetsuo droned. "Doooo you want breaaaaakfaaaast?"

"Go to hell!" she yelled irritably back through the. She had a hangover that had sirens attached to it and was in no mood for consciousness, let alone stomaching anything.

"And Shiiiiiiin?" Tetsuo added, the throbbing knock that beat up against the inside of her head continuing.

"What?" she squawked back, completely lost and getting crabbier by the second.

"Doooooooesss heeeeeeee waaant any?"

"_He?_You what? Huh... whuh!" she burbled, moving into a kind of squeak of surprise as she noticed that the pillow next to her actually had a head underneath it, and a body attached as well. One with a big patch of sticking plaster over the shoulder.

"Shin!" she gasped, grabbing him by the elbow and shaking him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"_No_," he mumbled insistently from underneath his pillow, his voice not loud enough to reach the hall outside. "Go away."

"Wake up!" Yankumi scolded, finally shaking him awake – much to his chargrain.

"Why can't you let me _die_ in peace..." he groaned, peering out into the morning light and wincing. When the knock at the door came to his attention also – and he found it similarly irritating – it only took him a moment to think before he reached out for the nearest shoe, and threw it towards the door.

Why it was always shoes he threw was unknown at this point, but the sneaker smacked loudly into the sturdy panel door and then dropped to the floor.

"I'll take that as a no, then," Tetsuo sighed, and started to whistle as he turned his back and carried on down the hall.

"I'm never coming back here again," Shin groaned as he buried his head underneath his pillow again and rolled over. "This is _why _I like to go to _my _place."

"That's where you _should_ be!" she insisted shrilly, and Shin blindly reached out behind him to fumble one of his hands over his face in an attempt to silence her.

"_I _have a hangover, you _definitely _have a one, and it's way too fuckin early in the morning," he explained as best he could from underneath a pillow. "Not _not_, Yankumi. Go back to sleep. Wake me when... when the world stops _spinning_ like that," he murmured queasily, and then in spite of a continued effort to rouse him for a good minute, he would _not _budge, and eventually her own horrible state of mind got to her. Yankumi sighed and flopped down next to Shin, leaning her forehead against the curve of his back and breathing in his smell.

"That's better," he whispered into the pillow, sinking back into sleep until the world felt a little more tolerable.

And _that _was how Yankumi finally became convinced that her family had actually known she was seeing him all along; although not after she had 'told' them all first, and they had been somewhat confused until Shin explained.

It took a fortnight or so before the work Shin was having done on his arm was totally finished and healed up, and Yankumi _insisted_ on coming around to see it as soon as she finished at Shirokin. Shin had been napping on his bed when she woke up at the door.

"It's open," he yelled, and sat up slowly as she came inside. "You know it's really not that much of a deal," he said dully as she scampered over to him. "I don't know why you made it seem like it was."

"Shin, I'm not stupid," she said sharply, her fuse short after a long day of troublesome kids and horrible test papers. "It's not '_just a tattoo_', for _one_ because I know it's the work of the same man who did Kyou's irezumi, and for two because even though I try to stop it as much as I can, you _are _becoming a part of my family. So don't play dumb, it doesn't suit you."

Shin raised his eyebrows at her and didn't say anything; his expression was answer enough.

"Very well," he eventually replied, and then without hesitation pulled off his T-shirt. He could have just lifted his sleeve, but that was _far _less fun. Especially when it still made Yankumi flush like it did.

"_Oh_," she gasped, half-raising a hand to her face and losing her way in the middle. "Wow."

The design stretched from the middle of Shin's bicep right up to his shoulder, and spread over and across it, fanning out across his shoulderblade at the back. It was mostly a single black pattern that wrapped around his arm and crawled up, but the lack of colour was made up for by the style. The strokes and lines of the network were a kind of fusion between traditional Japanese script and something far more tribal and aggressive.

It was almost awing, and Yankumi instantly understood why the artist who had created it was the favourite of her family,

There were no images in the design, which was probably because his arms were still going to change shape and he didn't want anything that would distort and stretch.

"Close your mouth," Shin taunted, and she snapped her jaw shut self-consciously. "I'll assume you don't hate it, then," he chuckled, and then jumped suddenly when she reached out to touch him, running her hand up from elbow to shoulder, feeling the faint ridges left by the tattooing process under her fingertips.

He shuddered, and quickly grabbed her around the waist with his other arm and spun her down onto the bed beside him.

"Don't touch me like that and not expect to get it back," he warned her salaciously, slipping a hand underneath her tracksuit and stroking it up her spine as far as he could.

He had expected her to say something in response, so it was quite a surprise when her grip simply tightened around his arm and she kissed him fiercely. His first thought was a similar _wow _to the one she had uttered only minutes earlier – if he'd known a little bit of ink would do _this _to her he would've done it a long time ago.

Then again, if he thought about it – which he wasn't much, because he really was far more interested in the very inviting and willing woman underneath him – this was a bit like that time he had been talked into wearing a fundoshi. One look at him, even back _then_ when he was a great deal lighter, and she had gone into a near-trance for a good half hour.

It was almost laughable, it occurred to him as he moved a knee between her legs and she hooked one around his waist and _oh_, that was _very _interesting – it occurred to him that in spite of all her huffing and puffing about not becoming a Yakuza and 'ruining his life', that was _exactly _what turned Yankumi on.

And he was _more _than happy to oblige her.

* * *

And we _all _know what happens next ;P

Decided not to go into writing any actual outright lemons in this. I'd rather not focus on sexsexsex in this fic. I've written Shinkumi smut before, and I've another plot bunny one that will probably wriggle its way out some time as a oneshot, but this story isn't going to be one of _those _where once they get their rocks off every half chapter is just one big lemon. I'd much rather write dialouge.

Anyway, leave a review please, you all did SO WELL last chapter I'm just tickled pink.


	8. Chapter 8

Sick in bed. Drinking cough medicine. Finishing this story soon, thanks to all the fantastic people out there who are making this fic good. A musician has to have an audience, or something like that. =D

* * *

"Oh, Shin!" Kuma exclaimed in surprise when he turned away from his work and saw the sleepy redhead leaning his face in his hands on the counter. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Uh," he grunted as he shook himself awake again and stood up. "I was stopping by for some breakfast."

"Well I can do that for ya," Kuma replied cheerfully –he was apprenticing as a chef at a local all-day restaurant, and the money they were paying him had thankfully allowed his mother to quit one of her jobs and get some well earned rest. "But I wonder why you're here, I mean, you're rarely awake this early, let alone eating," he remarked idly as he started dishing up Shin's order.

"_I'm _not," he said dryly, "but _someone _is."

"Whut?" the less-than-academically-gifted friend replied.

"I don't wake up early and eat," Shin explained again, "but the person _with me_ does." Kuma paused, and then leaned to the side and looked behind Shin, pointing out that there was no one there.

"She's back at mine," he told Kuma. "I have nothing to eat there, and the last thing you tell a grizzly bear that has just woken up from hibernation is that you have no food."

"_Ooooh_," Kuma hummed at last. "I see." He set to work preparing the takeaway meal for Shin, and chatted as he went. "So who's the lucky bird?" he asked, even though he had a pretty good idea what the answer was.

"You know who," Shin replied smartly. "Yes," he answered when Kuma forced it out of him with a look. "It's Yankumi." He tried not to gloat as he said it, but it was hard sometimes.

"Jeeesh,"Kuma sighed. "I can't believe you guys are like _that _already." Shin smirked and shrugged his shoulders – half the time even _he _couldn't believe it.

"I must be lucky," he admitted, and Kuma snorted.

"Only in your eyes," he replied. "Most of the guys wouldn't touch Yankumi if you _paid _them. Remember how they wouldn't believe you at first?"

"Their loss," Shin retorted sharply. It was too strong to say that he _resented _the fact that his peers thought Yanumi was unattractive, or undesirable in the very least, it just frustrated him that they couldn't _see _why she was. They'd have to be _blind_ not to find her attractive if they'd seen her the way he had; so she may not have a big chest or the look of a movie star, but she was in better shape than all of them put together and every single inch of her body was put to use.

You only had to see her exercise in shorts clothes to see how every line and curve of her body was toned and firm. You could probably bounce coins off a tensed muscle if you could keep her still long enough.

And the irezumi on top of that? _Well_, it was something else entirely. He did have to admit his personal weakness – or fetish as _she _liked to call it – for that look wouldn't necessarily be shared among his friends.

She didn't appear to people as a soft, delicate and feminine creature who was going to play the inferior to a man and fan their ego. Not a chance in hell. Nowadays she had an appearance that sometimes literally came up to you and screamed '_and_ _what?' _in your face if you had a problem with her.

She didn't play the 'little lady' to anyone and most of the time he was playing catchup to _her_. Not that he minded one bit; he was bored senseless before they'd met. Just trying to match her used up all the energy he had and _then_ some.

"Shin?... _Shin?_" Kuma prompted, shoving the boxes of food at him.

"Whu?" he blurted as he snapped back to reality.

"You were staring into space," Kuma chuckled. "You really _aren't_ a mornings kind of guy."

"Heh, thanks," he muttered as he paid the costs and bagged up the food – he had given Kuma a respectfully censored version of events behind his being here at this time. The fact was that aside from being more of a morning person than him, he and Yankumi had been ratheractive the night before, and the only thing that gave you a bigger appetite than brawling was sex. And they'd been up to _both_.

"Come by again soon," Kuma bade him goodbye, having to stay on the move and serve new customers that had arrived, so he couldn't stay to chat. Shin had to be getting back anyway.

Shin stepped inside his front door to undoubtedly his favourite sight in all Japan; Yankumi fast asleep in bed – _his _bed – wearing nothing but bedsheets, her hair splayed in all angles, and turned half onto her front so that the great, patterned expanse of her back was upturned and fully visible to him from the door. Nope, there wasn't much more he could ask for at this point. He had it _all_.

She wasn't still for long, however, as the smell of food wafted in with him and the morning breeze, and she stirred instinctively.

"Brrrrreakfast," she moaned softly, rolling over and tangling herself up in the sheets. Shin laughed quietly and crossed over to her, then held out the carrier full of food over her head.

"Hungry?" he taunted, raising the bag out of her reach as she tried to grab for it – just because he loved her didn't mean he was going to stop winding her up. "Hunnnngry, Yankumi?"

"Yes!" she barked, waking up properly and sitting upright to snatch at the food. Shin smirked when she noticed his noticeable state of dress and _her _noticeable _lack _of it, and she turned pink and snatched the sheets up to her chest. He outright laughed then, and lowered the takeaway into her lap. As if she had anything to be embarrassed about, and as if he hadn't been _very _closely associated with her body for some time now.

"Shy?" he teased, kicking off his shoes and crawling across to sit next to her on the bed.

"It's _light _now of course I'm..." she said hurriedly, flustered and embarrassed that she... _exposed _herself so freely without realizing. Maybe _Shin _didn't feel awkward about either of them being naked, but she did – it was only natural. "Gimmie that," she said, pointing at his chest.

"I already gave you my heart," he said sarcastically, grinning as he unpacked the food.

"No, _Romeo_," she said acridly. "The _shirt_. It's the closest thing to hand, isn't it? If _you _don't care at all then you won't min-" no sooner had she challenged him had he whipped the t-shirt off and thrown it full across her face, cutting off her sentence in the process.

"Humph," she huffed as she pulled it over her head. She hadn't expected him to do it _that _readily, and she tried to stop herself staring at the ever-growing tattoo sleeve that adorned his right shoulder and arm. It was a constant work-in-progress: whenever he had a little money to spare he had the design expanded, so it crept further and further across his arm and back by the week sometimes.

She had thought at first that he would look childish and silly with a _real _tattoo, but half to her dismay and half to her pleasure the result couldn't have been further away. The impact it had on her was remarkably similar to the way _he _felt about her irezumi, she imagined, judging by the way he'd _still_ flip her over and trace along the inked lines with the tip of his finger.

Well, sometimes his finger. He wasn't unknown to use his _tongue_ instead of his hands, but that only tended to be on, uh, _special occasions._

"What's the occasion?" she asked as she chewed on a huge mouthful of food, so it came out sounding a little more like _'muts mu moomaashion'._

"Chew, Yankumi," Shin sighed, waiting for her to finish her ungodly mouthful before she spoke again.

"What's the occasion?" she repeated when her mouth was empty. "It's not like you to go out for breakfast."

"There's literally nothing in here," he explained between his own bites. "_Literally_ nothing, we ate it all last night."

"So you thought you'd go and do something nice for your beloved sleeping beauty?" she cooed, and Shin reached across with his chopsticks and squeezed her nose, leaving sticky dressing on it in the process.

"In as many words," he replied. "Although you're more of a beast than a beauty when you wake up and there's nothing to eat."

Yankumi pouted, then continued to eat because mocking aside she really _was _ravenous.

"You know, we _always_ have food back home," she renewed a discussion that cropped up fairly regularly between them. "Not to mention Tetsuo cooks as well."

"He also likes to open doors without knocking," Shin reminded her, and even he noticed the twitch in her eye remembering the time the man had walked in on them almost... _well_. In his own defence he hadn't _known _Shin had come back with her that night, and it was the next morning as well, but that didn't mean Yankumi beat him any more mercifully after she'd put her clothes on.

"Oh... yeah," she mumbled awkwardly, the memory still excruciating to think of, and silently finished eating.

"So now what?" Shin asked as he shoved the leftovers into the fridge and returned to Yankumi.

"Well I should go home, I've got lesson plans and papers to mark and _you've _got finals to study for and..." she trailed off, because Shin was giving her a _look_. "What?" she challenged.

"I can think of something better to do," he stated, and although he didn't touch her, his eyes more than made up for it as they closely followed the lines of her body underneath his shirt.

"You can _always _think of something better to do," she huffed, trying not to encourage him with any kind of similar look on her part – even if she _was _thinking of exactly the same thing.

"It's gonna be a busy week starting tomorrow," he pointed out, slowly leaning over until she had to make a choice to face him and engage or move away and get up. "We might not get any time together until _next _week."

"Hmmmm..." she groaned, trying to make a rational decision before her body made it for her. "Well... _after _I'm going home, okay?" she reasoned.

"I was gonna stop by myself anyway," Shin said, although the focus of the conversation had long since shifted to her hand on his arm and his hand under her (or his) shirt. "I've gotta talk to the boss about that bastard dog again."

"Don't call Fuji a bastard! His parents..." Yankumi protested, but had to cut off in the middle as their lips clashed. "Oh forget it," she snapped when he didn't respond, both his mouth and mental capacity otherwise occupied, and she rolled onto her back, pulling Shin after her with a firm fist in his hair. He panted heavily in response and threw his full weight over her, pinning her other hand down into the mattress and letting her strain against the hold while he kicked off the rest of his clothes.

His friends could take all the delicate girly students in Japan as far as he cared – oh, they were _welcome _to them; he much preferred someone that wouldn't break when he played rough. And he _liked_ playing rough.

A couple of hours later, a very wired Yankumi and exceptionally relaxed, but equally satisfied Shin wandered into the Kuroda household.

"I'm hoooome!" Yanukumi, now answering to 'Ojou' bellowed as she bounced indoors, only to misstep as she crossed into the main room and almost go crashing to the floor.

"JEESH!" Shin yelped as he saw her stuble, and leapt out to grab her by the back of her shirt, pulling on it to slow her fall as he grabbed for an arm and steadied her for good with that. "What the hell went wrong there?" he questioned snappily, then looked across the room and saw why. "Oooh," he gasped as he saw the dark, analytical eyes of Shinohara staring dead at him.

"Kumiko, we have a guest," Ryuichiro said wearily, and his gaze flicked only briefly up at Shin. "Sawada," he greeted him only briefly, and then his attention returned to Shinohara.

"What...what... what?" Yankumi started up, but before she knew what was what Shin had her strongly and _very _insistently in his arms and had yanked her out of the room and out towards the long way round to the back of the house through the gardens. "Wait just a fukin minute!" she raged as he pulled her back.

"Don't, _don't_," he told her, although as he repeated it the word became distinctly more pleading. "Just let him do whatever business he's got with the boss first, Yankumi."

"But-!" she spluttered, and for all her squirming he would _not _let go. "That's..."

"I _know _who it is," he said sourly, and his bitterness did not go unnoticed.

"Hey, what're you scowling about?" she asked tentatively.

"Nothing," Shin snubbed, and she slapped him in the arm for it. "Oh come off it, you know what it's about," he confessed grumpily.

"Well don't be stupid," she retorted. "I've more of a mind to clout him one for showing his face around here."

"He's got a right to," Shin countered. "This isn't _your _house, it's the Boss's, and he is on different terms with that guy to you."

"Well..." she mumbled awkwardly, as Shin had a point. "But _still_," she insisted.

"Yeah, I know, didn't think you'd be seeing him so soon," he explained her thoughts – also his – on the matter. "Just... chill, okay."

Thankfully, he felt her relax after that, and absent mindedly kissed the top of her while she was close to him.

She pulled away a little and tiled her head back as he looked down, and she stole an innocent peck on the lips from him then stepped back self-consciously, looking over her shoulder towards the main house entrance.

"Imagine if he stepped out and saw us like this," she said worriedly, and then paused as she saw her statement met only with a look of interest and mischief. "That would've been a bit..."

"A bit what? You know, he probably realized anyway," he replied. "I mean, the way I was right behind you in there."

"That doesn't mean anything," she insisted, once more displaying the legendary slowness with which she recognised that others knew she was going out with Shin. "You could've just happened to be there and catch me."

"_Why _would I just happen to be there?" he replied. "It's going a _year_ since I left Shirokin, and I'm not a member of the gang. Not to mention," he added lowly, his voice almost like a purr or a dark, thick velvet, "we probably reek of sex." His hand suddenly felt several degrees hotter against her arm where he'd laid it.

"Uh! But... but I _showered_," she mumbled in a muted voice.

"Even so, it's obvious as hell," he replied. "You were almost bouncing off the ceiling."

"Well!" she yelped, almost shamed by the way her feelings and emotions shone through her like her entire body was just an elaborate megaphone for her thoughts.

"Who cares anyway," he said brusquely, shrugging off the possible opinions of Shinohara as he did most others. _Let_ the man know he was with the woman he turned down, it was _his _loss no matter what way you looked at it.

Back in the meeting room, the conversation had not quite yet reached such a conclusion.

"Sawada, huh?" Shinohara said thoughfully, thumbing his lower lip as he spoke. "The boy had said some high things to me before, but I hadn't expected him to become a brother so-"

"He is not a member here," Ryuichiro interrupted, irritated that his granddaughter and her partner's rude arrival had so disrupted his talk with Shinohara.

"What?" Shinohara said blindly, as his brows creased in confusion.

"Sawada is not a member of the Kuroda group," the elder repeated tirelessly.

"He isn't? Then what is he doing... here?" Shinohara asked, although a dark undercurrent in his mind began to ever so subtly suggest the 'obvious' reason behind Shin's presence, _and _his accompanying Kumiko.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Ryuichiro huffed, eager to resume their previous conversation. "Look, as you were saying..."

"I do not understand, Kumichou," Shinohara lied, because in fact he was pretty sure he _did _understand. "The reason that Sawada is..."

"It is perfectly natural for him to be here," Ryuichiro almost snapped, "he would not act like a stranger towards this family out of respect for Kumiko." Shinohara made sure not to betray his emotional reaction and calmly took a sip from his tea.

"I see, so that is the situation," he said quietly. "He and Kumiko are?"

"-In a relationship, yes," Ryuichiro said crossly. "They have been for some time now, it is not an issue of importance. _Your _return, however, is, because I believe the last time I told you was _really _going to be the last."

"Some time? It has not yet been two years since I-," Shinohara protested – just how quickly _had _the boy snatched up Kumiko, he wondered with far more concern than he'd told himself he would feel if this situation had come to pass.

"What does it matter how long it has been?" Ryuichiro barked at last. "You rejected my granddaughter's feelings, did you not? Her personal life is not of concern to you. She is perfectly happy with Sawada and I would very much like for things to _stay _that way." He scowled, feeling his weakened heart race with his temper. "Not," he added slyly, attempting to cool off before he got himself out of breath, "that I think he would allow you to interfere anyway."

"I'm sorry," Shinohara murmured. "I was just..." Surprised? Shocked? _Jealous?_ "not expecting it."

Ryuichiro huffed, taking a long drink of his own tea, draining the cup and slamming it back down on the table. "I don't see why not," he commented. "His intentions were plainly clear for some time before your departure. He only waited out of respect for the both of you. _Now_," he said sternly, "can we _please _get back to the topic at hand?" He gave Shinohara the look that suggested he did not try to cross a man who had crushed entire syndicates with no more than a word.

"Yes, of course, boss," Shinohara said quietly. "The situation is, even though I said I wanted to pursue dreams of my own practice and achieve my dreams, the closer I got to it the more I realized it was just the dream to redeem my father alone, and no more. The world I left for is..." he paused, choosing his words carefully. "Boring. It is full of dull people and dull cases. I spent my days sitting in an uncomfortable, hot rent-by-month office daydreaming about my times back here. In short, I _miss_ it."

"Our existence is not to give you a sense of excitement," Ryuichiro remarked coolly. "Just because you found your ambitions harder to achieve is no reason to give up on them."

"What ambitions are they!" Shinohara fired back passionately. "I have seen the road ahead in the firms that contract me, the men that wish to mentor me and the records that line the walls around me. It is no longer a road I wish to pursue. It is a derelict, dusty and lifeless dream that died with my father," he concluded bitterly, and he turned his face up to the boss's remorsefully. "All I wish to do is return to the service of the Kuroda," he confessed. "Here I felt I had purpose, back home I have no face, nothing to be identified by. I am simply another suited lawyer among thousands doing the same menial tasks over and over."

"You think that the Kuroda will change that? Our business is not so different from the rest of the world's," Ryuichiro stated.

"Kumichou, _please_," Shinohara pleaded, fingering his cup tensely. "I know that you need me here still, and to turn me away again would be _denying _me the path I truly wish to follow. You released my service so that I could do that, did you not? Well I am doing that, and it takes me right here," he finished triumphantly, and held the elder man's gaze until eventually one of them had to blink.

"Very well," Ryuichiro relented eventually. "I will _consider _your appeal. However, there are others I need to consult about this, so perhaps you would be content to leave for now. I will inform you what my decision is once I have made it."

"Thank you, sir," Shinohara said gratefully, bowing low before standing up and excusing himself. Ryuichiro stood up and rearranged his clothing, then left himself, trotting down the corridor until he reached the back of the compound, where his granddaughter was doing squats with a very tense expression and Sawada lounged along the steps idly watching her.

"Sawada," he said quietly, not disturbing Kumiko from her exercise routine. "A word."

"Ou," Shin mumbled, picking himself up and following the boss down the hall. "I take it this is not about the dog, then?" he said calmly as he shut the sliding door behind him into the meeting room.

"Quite so," Ryuichiro said, gesturing for Shin to sit. "How is she?" He may have displayed confidence toward Shinohara, but he was not so omnipotent that he could know how Kumiko was feeling without even speaking to her on the issue; although, talking to Shin was usually much better than questioning his granddaughter herself.

"Oh you know," Shin sighed. "You saw the exercise circuits." Ryuichiro chuckled – even as a child Kumiko had always chosen to sweat out her problems instead of trying to consul them. "She's okay. Little surprised, but then so was I. Never realized that guy would be back _this _soon."

"Nor I," Ryuichiro replied. "It seems he has become very disenchanted with the world he had built his dreams in. He wishes to return to my service."

Shin shrugged. "That's your business, Kumichou, not mine. Not hers, either."

"Even so, I felt I should let you know of his intentions," Ryuichiro explained. "Kumiko convinced herself of many things concerning Shinohara, and while I don't doubt her bonds with you, I do not want either of you to feel as if I have betrayed your feelings by considering his request to return."

"If it's not too forward of me to say, then you should _let _him," Shin suggested. "He was a good guy for you, wasn't he? There's no point throwing that away just because Yan... Kumiko _used _to have a crush on him." The 'used' could not have been any more emphasised. Shin was pretty damn certain Yankumi had put everything she'd felt for the lawyer behind her, because it was certainly not _his _name she screamed into his neck this morning.

"Well... there is another complication," Ryuichiro elucidated, and Shin leaned in intently. "You, Sawada."

"Me?" he echoed in surprise. "Why's that?"

"Well, not to put too fine a point upon it," Ryuichiro began, and the magnitude of what he was about to say suddenly weighed in on Shin. "I had been intending to bring it up with you today anyway, but I have rather been under the impression that you want to take my job from me."

* * *

"Kumiko," Shinohara called to her quietly, but even the softest call from that voice made her freeze mid way through a squat. She stared up at him with a mixture of disbelief and distaste.

"What?" she said bluntly, forcing herself to continue her exercises as if his very presence hadn't put her hair on end. "Why are you here? Where's..." She hadn't meant to ask after Shin, but she did it without thinking because when she looked round she'd been unable to see him.

"Sawada is talking with the boss, I think," Shinohara told her. "He passed me on my way out."

"This _isn't _the way out," she told him stiffly.

"I know," he replied humbly. "I just wanted to talk to you, see how you had been getting on."

"I'm fine," she answered awkwardly. She wasn't exactly angry with Shinohara any more, because she'd completely forgotten about him for this past year or so. His presence made her uncomfortable, and she wished he'd carry on staying gone from her life, but she couldn't be bitter about how he had treated her feelings, because _if _he hadn't turned her down, Shin might never have come to her at all, and even now with Shinohara standing right in front of her, she was sure she had picked the better man.

"Are you still working at Shirokin?" he inquired, and she nodded, continuing with the circuit training for lack of anything better to do. "Kumiko," he called again, and the name reminded her of all the years she'd loved him. Shin barely ever called her Kumiko, and she was quite glad for that now, she didn't want to have to share an address between those two.

"Yes. I'm coming up for a promotion soon, to head of the maths department."

"Ahh, that's great," Shinohara murmured, and it couldnt' have been any more obvious that this was not what he had wanted to talk about.

"Go ahead," she told him haughtily. "Ask me what you want to ask."

"Is it true?" Shinohara rushed. "Are you and that boy..."

"He's hardly a _boy_ any more, Sensei," she interjected; in her eyes at least, Shin certainly wasn't a child – a _brat_, sure, but he was a young adult if he had to be anything. "But _yes_. We are."

"Do you really think it's wise? Dating a past student?"

"I don't think what he _used _to be really makes a difference, do you?" she responded calmly.

"And the age difference?"

"Is not much greater than the age difference between you and me," she pointed out rightfully. "Shin cares for me a _lot_ and I return his feelings, that's all there is to it."

"And he make you happy?" Shinohara inquired, mostly just trying to understand.

"Of course he does!" she retorted. "I wouldn't have stayed with him if he didn't." She thought for a moment, and then added, "duuh!"

"I see, so that's the situation," he said thoughtfully.

"There's no 'situation'!" she snapped, hating that even after he had broken her heart once, Shinohara somehow felt the right to try to pry into her personal life again. "I am together with him because I like his company and he accepts me for who I am. _He_ never worries about the future or what it may hold, he just wants to enjoy the present for what it is."

"So even that is true," Shinohara replied smartly. "He's going to be the next leader?"

"NO HE ISN'T!" she yelled, her natural instinct firing up as usual. "Well... I don't _know, _and I'm not going to waste my time wondering about it."

"You cannot ignore the future," Shinohara told her. "You cannot just pretend it is not there, that it is not already thought by many that he's going to take the Kumichou's place."

"I'm not pretending!" she fired back. "I'm just not going to think about it until it happens... but if he _did _take Grandpa's place he'd do a lot better than _you _ever would!" she yelped on the last note, only realizing what she'd said after she'd said it. She clapped her hands over her mouth in horror.

"Oh," said Shinohara, raising his eyebrows slightly. "So that _is _how it is." It was only as he said this that he realized what he'd been hearing as Yankumi spoke was in fact the sound of a sliding door open and close up the hall, followed by footsteps down the hall.

As Shin walked past him to the left the lawyer glanced across and saw the network of inked ribbons that covered Shin's upper body, reaching now from his right elbow all the way up one side of his neck at its highest point, and all the way over his shoulder down to his chest at its widest.

He had to consciously hide his surprise at the display, and held his tongue as the next 'Young Master' walked up to the woman who was responsible for it all.

"I'm going now, Yankumi," Shin said rather boredly, which alarmed Shinohara as he had been inspecting the boy to jump in to defend his partner.

"Oh, you are? Okay then," she replied brightly. "You can take Sensei here out with you."

"Sure thing," Shin answered, and put his hand on Kumiko's shoulder, leaning in to kiss her goodbye. Shinohara was unsure as to whether he was being deliberately flaunted at or plain ignored, but even he couldn't pretend not to see the way the two... _lovers_ looked together – they had to be lovers – they would not kiss like that if they weren't.

They looked... _right_. Shinohara had found the concept of the _kid _he'd known being what he could've been to Kumiko completely laughable, but now he saw loud and clear that they looked perfect for each other. Better, he imagined, than she would have ever been with himself. They complimented one another.

Shinohara would have been a liar to say that he did not feel a long-delayed sense of loss.

* * *

Oooookay I reckon now this is the second-to-last chapter. I've just got to sort out the last few things before this is complete, and I reckon they'll all go into one chapter. Thanks for the ride people!

Please forgive any mistakes because I am dosed up on cough syrup. Leave a review though.


	9. Chapter 9

Here it is, the last chapter of _Inked_. It's a little longer than usual, seeing as it's the last and I wanted to get everything in without driving it out into two chapters.

Enjoy.

* * *

"Oi, oi, Yankumi," Shin prompted as he shifted his shoulder against Yankumi's weight and tried to jostle her awake. He'd not minded when she curled up against his shoulder on the sofa, far from it, but she did have a tenancy to drool when she actually fell asleep. "Don't fall asleep, you'll miss the end of the movie."

"Seen it already," she mumbled drowsily, settling herself better in the curve of his shoulder and sighing, completely at ease.

"Well stay awake anyway," he insisted. "I wanna talk to you about some stuff before we go to bed."

She picked her head off his shoulder in curiosity. "What?" she said, sounding slightly worried, or perhaps just confused.

"Uh." Shin scratched his cheek with his free arm a little awkwardly. "I wanted to just... look, we can talk about it after the film is ov-" he broke off as Yankumi insistently reached out and stopped the DVD.

"It's over," she proclaimed, and sat up properly. "What is it?"

"Well... you know I graduate next year," he began, and she nodded. "The thing is... I'm probably gonna be... sharing a cup with your Grandfather pretty soon after then." He winced, expecting Yankumi to explode or blow up at him in some way, but to his surprise she didn't say anything for a while, and instead settled herself against his side again.

"Oh...I know," she said quietly, and for once it was Shin who was stunned that she knew what he'd been thinking.

"You do?" he burst. "I thought..."

"I'm not stupid, Shin," she said calmly. "I _have_ watched you getting closer to them all this time. I've heard the rumours and seen the way everyone there regards you. It's not really a surprise."

"Aren't you pissed!" he gaped. She had been so furiously opposed to his having anything to do with the Kuroda group that he simply couldn't believe she was really this calm.

"Well I _was_," she confessed. "But... well, you know Grandpa is getting old now, and his health isn't what it used to be. When I think about it, I'm... kind of _scared_ of what would happen to everyone if he were to suddenly..." she broke off, not wanting to say she feared for his life in case she somehow cursed it to be true. She clung to Shin a little closer, and he tightened his arm instinctively around her in return.

"I know Kyou and Wakamatsu can handle things for a while, but it's not a long term solution," she explained. "There'll have to be a Yondaime sooner or later, and the godawful truth is that..." she paused for breath, while Shin held his, "_you're _the person I think we could trust with something like that. I mean, what I mean is..." she rushed, "if it was anyone else I'd be certain they'd do everything wrong and run Grandpa's legacy into the ground, but if it _were _you then I'd feel like things would definitely be all right in the end." She paused, unclenching her fist from where it had balled tightly in his shirt. "Does that make any sense?" she asked timidly.

"Yeah," he replied shortly, still overwhelmed by the response she'd given him. "I'm just a bit shocked, I hadn't thought even _you _would be thinking like this too."

"I know it's too much to put on a youngster like you," she admitted with a sigh, although she'd had plenty of time to come around by now.

"Well I've encouraged it," he replied. "Haven't I? I mean I haven't _actually _said I'll trot along and become the Yondaime, but I never said I _wouldn't_."

"That doesn't mean you've said yes though," she pointed out. "You could still get away."

"I don't _want_ to get away," he responded. "If this is what's required of me then I am willing. It's still all a long way off, and anything could happen between now and then, so I'm not saying anything's in stone, _but... _I know what the first step is, and I _do _want to take it. Just to see if I can."

"You can," she immediately answered his unasked question. "You basically ran your class didn't you? You've had one foot in the door of Kuroda since you finished high school. And what's more..." She moved again so she was face to face with Shin.

"I love you." Shin thought that by now she'd lost that ability to make his heart feel like it was backflipping on stilts, but evidently that was not the case, because for a moment there he had to remind himself to breath properly. She continued as if she'd barely said anything, "You know as well as I do the tradition of the leadership." Oh yes, he knew all too well. "So... _you know_," she mumbled, "you're bound to do okay. It's meant to be."

Shin closed his eyes for a moment and tried to take the moment in. It wasn't every day you realized that you'd consigned yourself to becoming the next leader of a Yakuza group with one of the most powerful names in the underworld. That you were going to live as a criminal, a gangster, and you were half the age of the men who were supposed to work under you. Hell knows it wasn't going to be a normal arrangement, but he had a strange sense that it was going to work out one way or another.

It just seemed _written... _orinked, even, like a tattoo upon some cosmic creature's skin.

"You know, I think we should leave all this heavy leadership talk behind," he said afresh, closing his arm around her body and drawing her closer to him. "I'd rather talk about this being the first time you've actually said you love me." He tried not to laugh as Yankumi went spectacularly pink.

"Y-you know I... _do_," she muttered, and her lips felt as if they were genuinely burning when Shin leaned forwards and pressed his against them.

"You haven't said it before," he pointed out. "I never pushed you because I knew you'd get there eventually, but it's nice to have finally hear you say it out loud." He had told her he was in love with her years ago – right when they _started _going out. He would be a liar to say that it hadn't bothered him at all since then, but he'd always kept his tongue because he had to give her time to work it out for yourself.

"S-sstupid," she stammered. "You could've asked."

"Asking takes away the point," he told her. "You should say it because _you _want to, not because I want you to."

"Well I _do_... did... whatever," she babbled. "I l-... I love you, Sawada Shin. You happy now?"

"Hell yeah," he replied with a grin to match, and then before the conversation could carry on any further he kissed her properly, and then one thing – as it was prone to do – inevitably lead to another.

In the end, it was just a few months before Shin's graduation from University – with a top class degree in (mostly criminal) Psychology – that it was finally accepted at last that the young Red Lion _would _become a part of the Kuroda group officially. Sure, very little changed at first, but eventually he became drawn further and further into the criminal world of the Yakuza. Yankumi wasn't sure she liked it, but it was Shin's life to lead and he had made his choice – she was not his teacher any more, but his partner, and that meant she couldn't _tell_ him what to do any more than he could tell her.

That said, it couldn't have been more than three months after his Graduation – also his initiation – that Shin had his first spot of trouble. It was bad enough that Shinohara had to be called in.

Also enough, for that matter, for Shinohara to storm into Yankumi's room first thing in the morning with the knowledge that Shin would most likely be in there too, which he was.

"What the hell have you done now?" Shinohara burst in a less-than pleasant waking call. Shin, lying on his front, with one heavily tattooed arm thrown over Yankumi's stomach, moaned groggily and flipped over. "Sawada!" Shinohara barked. "Do you _want _to go to prison?"

"What? _What?_!" he shot, bolting up in bed and glaring at the lawyer in shock. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the word on the street being that you _murdered_ the son of the Zabu-group's leader last night!" Shinohara blazed. "It was all I could do to keep _your _father from storming this place at dawn with half the police force behind him."

Shin blinked several times, and beside him Yankumi stirred, although at first she just rolled over and mumbled something like 'five more minutes'.

"What? Murdered?" Shin echoed. "I didn't kill anyone last night."

"Then wha-"

"That kid is in a dumpster at the end of the street," Shin groaned lazily. "I _knew _he wasn't strong enough to lift the lid from inside."

"You... you... Wait... I passed that on the way over..." Shinohara said suspiciously. "I thought it was odd that a dumpster should have _bricks _on top of it."

Shin gave him what could only be described as a guilty _smirk_, but it was ruined when Yankumi punched Shin in the ribs from where she lay.

"Ow, woman!" Shin snapped. "It was just a joke!" Tetsuo and Minoru, who had been lurking outside to eavesdrop peered inside, and Shinohara gave them a quick nod that suggested they go and fetch the poor victim of Shin's bad sense of humour before the police _did _come to take him away.

"Jeese," Shin muttered sourly, the morning beginning to bite into him. "You stick one punk in a dumpster and people think you're a murderer."

"Welcome to the Yakuza, baby," Yankumi slurred sarcastically from beside him. "It's people thinking the worst of you for the rest of your life."

"Oh don't you start," he retorted. "I've not got the energy for morning sex so behave yoursle- OW!" he yelped as she punched him again, and a rather feisty look replaced drowsiness in Shin's eyes.

"Look, the kid is as far as I know alive and well... in garbage," Shin told Shinohara bluntly. "He wasn't dead when I left him, and if he is now it's nothin' to do with me. _So _if you wouldn't mind..." he trailed off suggestively and looked pointedly at the door, and Shinohara wasn't quite sure what to do with himself .

He didn't exactly want to just skip out on Shin's orders, but on the other hand it wasn't exactly comfortable being in Yankumi's bedroom while Shin was actually occupying the same bed... _and _looked like he was about to start something with her, which would account for the hasty dismissal.

"Shiiiiinnnooohara senseiiiii!" came a great roar from outdoors, as Tetsuo and Minoru returned dragging a rather smelly youth between the two of them. "We found him! He was sleeping like a baby and stinks something rotten!" Shinohara paced out to the hallway and glanced down at the party of three.

"So he's alive?"he questioned.

"Alive as you or me," Tetsuo replied, and Shinohara gave Shin a foreboding look before stepping outside fully and closing the door. He tried not to twitch as he heard a loud creaking from behind him and some muffled sounds and squealing. He knew it wasn't as if Shin and Kumiko were _trying _to flaunt their relationship in front of him, because he was aware that they'd been dating for something over three years now, so it was hardly a novelty any more.

He'd realized that he just had to accept this was the way things had worked out – so uncomfortable for him or not, he had to live with it. Sure, he sometimes thought about what might have been if he'd realized earlier that he didn't want to leave the Kuroda Group, and if Kumiko could've been _his _and not Shin's, but that wasn't the way it went. Anything but acceptance was just fantasy, because Shin was no more likely to let Kumiko go than pigs were to fly; it was obvious to everyone that he practically _worshipped _her.

Inside the room Shinohara left behind, a still-sleepy Yankumi was struggling irately against Shin, who had more or less pounced on her as soon as Shinohara shut the door, and was now pinning her to the mattress by her wrists.

"I thought you said you weren't in the mood," she reminded him as he leant down on top of her and started to kiss her jaw and neck playfully; although, occasionally he bit her instead, as it seemed to bring him some kind of amusement.

"I'm not," he replied between mouthfuls. "I can still be _nice_ to you, though"

"_Nice_," she scoffed, shoving him back, "Gerroff," she barked, and then sat up to rub the sleep from her eyes. "What a morning," she moaned, thinking over her lesson plans for school that day. Most of the time if Shin was around hers, which was more often that not these days, she just left him in bed. This was a more unpleasant (and confusing) awakening than most.

"Don't blame me," he replied.

"Who _else _should I blame?" she retorted. "You're the one who caused trouble."

"That punkstarted it with me first," Shin said in defence. "I just caught him lurking around here yesterday evening when I went out with that bastard dog."

_'That bastard dog'_ was fast becoming Fuji's common use name, thanks to Shin's influence in the house, and much to Yankumi's disdain.

"He looked suspicious so I asked him what he was up to, and then _he _suddenly went nuts, yelling about he was the son of the Zabu Kumichou and he was gonna 'take me down', and that was _before _he started waving around a steak knife," Shin continued to narrate, but then broke off fairly swiftly with the conclusion. "So I just bricked him in the dumpster."

Yankumi gave him a tired look, to which he simply shrugged and responded, "Trash with the trash."

"You could have fought him honestly," she pointed out righteously. "It's not manly to avoid a proper fight."

"I _did _fight him," Shin reiterated. "I only threw him in there after I'd knocked him down and tried to walk away once already. He'd started chasing me and wouldn't stop waving that fucking knife about, it was pissing me off." She sighed loudly and dragged herself up – unlike _some _she had a proper job to go to.

"Well it's _your_ reputation," she huffed, getting up and changing out of her bedclothes, not missing that Shin had remained seated upright specifically to watch her undressing. "Pervert," she bandied.

"I _said _I'm not in mood," he said once more; he was still plenty satisfied from last night, and had no desire to suffer for the rest of the day from exhaustion or a sex coma. He'd done it before and it was _not _pleasant, especially when he would get tormented for it all day by the rest of the guys.

"You just look best naked," he explained matter-of-factly. Some people looked better with clothes on, but Yankumi was the reverse. Without frumpy t-shirts or tracksuits, or, indeed_, any _clothes, her body was totally revealed for the fantastic form it was – especiallyher irezumi, and her unbound hair only adding to the impact.

Clothes covered up the body and its imperfections, and as far as Shin ever saw she had none. So. Naked it was.

"Pshhh," she scoffed, covering up the embarrassment with flattery that never got any better even after several _years _with Shin. He was almost twenty-three now, which was a slightly worrying thought. Almost as worrying as the fact that _she _was twenty-eight.

"Oi," he catcalled as she headed towards the door. "I'm awake now, you've got no excuse not to say goodbye."

"Well get up yourself!" she retorted, and to her surprise he _did_. Even now he was just as lazy as he'd ever been, god forbid he ever try to hold down a regular job.

"Okay, okay," he droned, grabbing a handful of clothes and a towel under one arm. "I'll go out for a run or something." He wasn't out of shape by any means, but that was no excuse now that he was part of the Kuroda household. In fact, to ever get to the level of Kyou or Wakamatsu he needed to be training several times a week at least, not including the exercise he got getting into any trouble on the streets.

"I'll see you to Shirokin," he added before he disappeared off to shower, not even allowing her time to protest or claim she was taking the bus – she _did _wear exercise clothes to work, so it wasn't like the run would be ill suited to her outfit either.

He was ready by the time she had finished her breakfast, and their 'jog' to Shirokin ended up a no-blows-held race, which Yankumi triumphantly won in spite of Shin's best efforts to throw her off every way he could. He was about stronger than she was now, but she was still _much _faster. He never dared to spar with her because he strongly disliked having his ass handed to him by her – not because he disliked losing to a woman or his girlfriend on principle, but because she _never fucking shut up _about it afterwards.

Somewhat to Yankumi's surprise, it turned out that Shin and Shinohara got on rather well most of the time, once the latter had accepted the situation between her and Shin and it had ceased to become something to raise tensions. The only thing that _did _raise tensions was after Shin had been named Kuroda Ryuichro's protégée officially, which was a month or two after he turned 25 and was seen to be of an acceptable age to be tipped for Yondaime.

The problem was that while Shin had a great deal of respect for all of the men of the Kuroda network, he _would _call them out if he thought they were about to make a terrible mistake, even Kyou or Wakamatsu, and while they would be happy to accept the criticism if it was proven to be well founded, Shinohara did not consider himself... _intellectually_ on the same level as them, and if Shin tried to call _him _out there was always hell to pay.

"Do not condescend to me, Sawada," Shinohara threatened viciously on one such occasion. "You are not a laywer, you do not _know_ the law."

"I don't need to know the fucking law to know you're overreacting," Shin fired back. "If you let it go to court it's gonna make even more of a mess than it is already. If you let the Chief and me go around and shake Suzuki up a bit then we can hush this whole thing up without it coming to that."

"All _that _is going to do is bring witness intimidation charges against you and make my job even harder," Shinohara retorted.

"If we go to court at _all_ we're _fucked_," Shin pointed out. "Kyou doesn't need another prison sentence, and I'd quite like to stay out of it too, for that matter."

"Ah, so you believe that I cannot protect the Kuroda group?" the lawyer accused victoriously.

"I don't think you can save this one, no," Shin replied, "largely because we _did _it. If we go to court they will bring up all the evidence and _prove _that we did it. If we rough up Suzuki then all that evidence can find itself in a fire by tomorrow night, _and _his backers will drop the charges."

"Sawada-!" Shinohara yelled, but before he could continue Shin had stood up and thrown back the chair he'd been lounging in so hard it crashed into the wall and then fell over. He strode up to the desk Shinohara did most of his work at and pounded his hands down on the top _very _aggressively_._

"I'm not asking you not to start the court proceedings," Shin said very carefully, his voice drenched in hidden threats, "I am _telling _you not to."

"Then you are speaking well out of line," Shinohara rebuffed haughtily. "You are _not _in a position to give orders around here."

"If you spoke to the boss or Kyou they would say the same thing!" Shin blasted. "But Kyou has pissed off out and the Boss is in the fucking hospital." Ryuichiro was unwell again, but thankfully he was going to make a full recovery this time; although, he would have to take it very easy once he was discharged.

By now the yelling, and particularly the chair being thrown across the room, had woken up Yankumi who had been dozing on a couch a few doors down in the compound, and she wandered in to see what the fuss was about.

"What's all this?" she questioned wearily as she slumped in the door, and received fiery looks from both men in the room.

"Do you want me to go to prison!" Shin asked her crossly, and as Shinohara tried to object Shin whipped around his head and gave the older man a glare that genuinely made him hesitate.

"What?" Yankumi murmured. "_What?" _she repeated as the words sunk in.

"If this guy pushes through this court case instead of letting us settle the issue _outside _of the law, then you can say goodbye to seeing me _or _Kyou for the next three years." He shot another look at Shinohara. "At _least_."

"What the fuck did you do?" she screamed.

"We're Yakuza, Love," Shin pointed out patiently. "The question is what _don't _we do."

"Well... what's the situation?" she questioned tensely, stepping further into the room and appealing to Shinohara, who repeated the argument he'd made to Shin about witness intimidation, claiming that the backers _wouldn't _drop the charges no matter what.

"The problem is you think _everything _can be settled correctly through the court," Shin argued. "This can't. Well, it can, but the 'correct' conclusion puts me behind fucking bars and lets the scumbags against us get a filthy hand into the Kuroda money to boot." He leant over the desk again and raised a hand to point at Shinohara. "Give me _a day_, one fucking day and I will go and settle this. The case will never make it to a clerk, let alone a prosecutor."

Shin was no longer a 'kid' to be ignored now. He was older than Yankumi was when she started teaching at Shirokin, the named successor to Ryuiciro – with a full irezumi of his own, bearing his nickname in the form of a bloody great lion face across his entire back – and most of all, he really _wasn't _someone you wanted to fuck with, unless you were the singular exception of his girlfriend.

Yankumi herself was now looking at Shinohara pleadingly. She didn't want to take sides, _but_...

"It's just one day, Sensei," she pointed out. "If he gets himself in even more trouble then he'll just get longer in prison and you'll be right." She ignored Shin's increasingly pissed attitude towards her with that remark. "If not, then it saves you the hassle of trying to win a bad case."

"It's a gamble," Shin remarked. "They don't teach you it at a law school." Shinohara nearly snapped at Shin, but Yankumi got there first.

"Shin don't be a prick," she snarled, and Shin was forced to bite his lip. "Just go out and do what you have to do," she said with an exhausted sigh – being around these two when they were having a run in was the most tiring thing she knew. Neither argued with anyone else in the family even half as badly as they did with each other – and then when they were in agreement, _no one _stood a chance against them.

"Fine, so long as he can give me his word he'll cover until tomorrow," Shin insisted, and with a cajoling look from Yankumi Shinohara relented.

"Fine," Shinohara parroted, falling back into his own chair with a 'thwump' and started thumbing through papers angrily. Shin turned his back and stormed out, with Yankumi hot on his heels.

"Hey," she called out when he didn't stop for her. "Shin!" He whirled around to face her just as he reached the door, his expression less than balanced, but not showing any anger directly toward her just yet.

"What?" he snapped, and caught her fist in his hand when she tried to throw a light punch at him – a known medium of communication for her.

"Calm the fuck down," she told him. "You can't go out with a hot head like that, you're going to do something stupid."

"The only stupid thing that was gonna be done tonight you thankfully managed to stop," he replied. "_I'm _going to save my and Kyou's skin." He hunched up his shoulders once or twice, flexing his arms inside his shirt sleeves; he'd be needing them.

"And you think going alone is a _smart _idea?" she hissed. "Get real." She had grabbed a jacket off the rack in the hall before Shin had time to realize what she was doing, and stopped her at the door.

"Oh no," he threatened. "You're _not_ coming."

"Well _you're_ not going alone," she retorted. "I want to see you dead about as much as I want to see you in prison, so I'm coming."

Shin loitered for a moment, obviously thinking it over before finally giving in. "Fine," he huffed. "But you stay out of the way unless I _do _get into trouble, okay? That baldy at Shirokin is pretty lenient, but getting your ass hung up to dry in court ain't gonna be something he can excuse."

"Yeah, yeah," she groaned, shoving him out of the door with an exasperated sigh. "I do know the routine, actually." Shin let himself be pushed along, but halted suddenly at the gates of the Kuroda compound.

"Then there's just one thing left to do," he said insistently.

"What?" She looked about bemusedly – she didn't _think_ she'd left anything.

"Kiss for luck," he answered suavely, the words barely snatching the time to be heard before he grabbed and kissed the living _hell _out of her. "Uhh," he gasped after she stopped indulging him and pulled away. "Let's get this done quick," he requested hastily as he let his arms fall from around her and started off walking down the street.

"Why's that?" Yankumi asked, although she had a pretty clear idea why.

"Because the faster we're done _there _the faster we can be at _my_ place," he answered plainly, and Yankumi had to resist asking anything else. Shin still had the same apartment he'd always had, although it had been bought by the Kuroda group when his father had found out his son was a gangster, and while it got some other use as a half-way house or a safe place to lay low at, its prime use by _them _was the kind of sex that you didn't want to anyone you knew in the same building when you were having it.

The rough and notably loudkind of sex. It was evident then that Shin wasprettypumped if that was the plan for the rest of the night... notthat _she_ was complaining.

Shinohara had overheard enough of their conversation on the way out to know that Kumiko had insisted on going with Shin to ruin his life, so he was doubly worried on her behalf now as well. Unfortunately he also knew it was unlikely the couple would come back here after doing what they had to do, so there'd be no way of knowing how it went until they showed their faces again tomorrow. They could be having sex or _dead_, and he'd have no way to tell.

He sighed and reluctantly started to get down to the work he'd been persuaded into doing, steeling himself for the next day, which wasn't going to be an easy day's work by any rate; although, it would be less work _if _Shin's gamble paid off and the case never made it to court. Not that Shinohara _thought_ it'd work.

However, on this occasion he had been wrong, because after that night the whole thing simply vanished, which he suspected Kumiko's presence had an awful lot to do with, because anyone with one ear to the gangster world knew that while the Red Lion was no one to be trifled with, if Kuroda's Ojou was with him as well they _really _meant trouble. A Lion and Lioness, just like their tattoos.

While his spirit was still as strong as ever, it had to be accepted that the Dragon Ryuichiro Kuroda's body was not what it used to be, and his retired management had to retreat even further into being a ghost leadership over the next few years, with his consultation or action being required only for the most extreme circumstances. The acting boss was Kyou, but all outsiders understood the Kuroda inner circle was a a tightly knit group of which each member was as important and had as much say as the other.

There were upheavals from time to time, however, usually when Ryuichiro had a bout of winter flu or some other small, non-fatal complaint. He wasn't intending to die any time soon, but he wasn't going to live long if he carried on being the boss of the group, so he just enjoyed his unofficial retirement.

One such shake-up occurred when Ryuichiro had in fact gone on a hot springs spa holiday to a health clinic in Hokkaido, but some fool said that he had gone to a hospice to die. Some of the more rebellious and unfaithful branches to the Kuroda syndicate were persuaded to take a stand against them with the backing of their main opponents, and it came to a head when a crack team of the strongest men from the combined forces came to confront the apparently 'leaderless' Kuroda.

Yamaguichi Kumiko had been marking another year's worth of truly dismal math papers when Shin almost kicked the door in.

"Yankumi!" he panted, his breath fast and expression worried. "Get up, get up! Opponents of the house have rallied a gang of at least fifty, they're on their way _now! _We've got to cut them off."

"WHAT?" she screamed, scrambling to her feet and bounding over to him. "What do they want?" she exclaimed.

"Some scum's said that the boss has gone up north to _die_," Shin explained as he grabbed her arm and they began to run towards the house entrance where the rest of the guys were waiting.

"They did! But Grandpa's gone to the hot spa!" she wailed, the topic of her grandfather's death still the fasted known way to reduce her to tears.

"_I _know that, but that's not the word out," Shin replied. "Zabu house and a few of our other enemies have rallied a fighting squad based on that rumour, and have boiled up some ridiculous notion of wiping us out while our leader is down." At the door now, they joined the rest of the Kuroda men, and Kyou snorted loudly at the parts of Shin's speech that he overheard.

"Pigs!" he barked furiously. "We will teach them a lesson in doubting the Kuroda name!"

"Damn right!" Yankumi bellowed in return, almost frog jumping over Shin as she rushed forwards to hold her fist up triumphantly with Kyou.

"Calm down," Shin scolded. "We're not there yet."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Yankumi yelled, and then beating her fist up in the direction of the street charged out, followed by the rest of the family whooping and cheering. Shin brought up the back, mostly laughing at the fantastic display she was leading. At least they'd make a big entrance this way.

It turned out that fifty had been an _optimistic _estimate, and there were at least ten more than that, although numbers had never put off the maniacs who ran the Kuroda before, and Shin had gone and thrown himself in head first with them, so he was going to run with the best of them.

An hour or so later, the last gang member fell, and the triumphant but battle-worn Kuroda elite stood victoriously in a circle. Shin slumped to the ground and caught his breath; he was still the weakest fighter among them, and while he didn't do any worse in terms of the battle, he was rather more exhausted afterwards. He wondered if he could get Yankumi to carry him home, and then decided that would be pushing it a bit too much.

"Oh god," he groaned, his face sinking into his hands as no more than a minute after the last thug hit the floor Kyou and Yankumi had merrily started stacking them up.

"Do we sort them by group?" Yankumi questioned.

"I'm doin' em by colour," Kyou replied, tossing a man in a green shirt onto a pile of similarly green-clad men.

"Are you really going to do this?" Shin questioned weakly, wincing a second time as he observed Wakamatsu, Tetsuo and Minerou going to join in.

"Don't be a sourpuss, Shin," Yankumi told him. "Why don't we sort them in terms of size?"

"What you mean start with the big ones at the bottom and work up?" Wakamatsu suggested.

"Hey, we could build a tower!" Kyou said excitedly.

Shin slowly got to his feet again, scrubbing the dried blood from his chin – someone had bust open his lip – and stumbled over towards them. Yankumi, obviously taken with the idea of a tower, had gone for the biggest guy of the lot, and was rather unsuccessfully trying to drag him along by his feet.

"Here," Shin said, shouldering her aside and grabbing one leg for himself. "I'll give you a hand."

"Ha!" she laughed. "See, it's not so bad, is it?"

"It's ridiculous," Shin stated, and then after a pause added, "but... so is the rest of it. What choice do I have?" Yankumi chuckled fondly, and reached over to ruffle his hair, which he still maintained in its assaulting shade of red.

"You're still a brat," she sniggered.

"_Brat_," he scoffed. "I'm going to be fuckin' thirty in a few years now. I don't know when I got so _old_."

"Oh relax, thirty's not old," she told him, several years past _that _margin already.

"Still," he said, as they finally succeeded at bringing the heavy man over to the place Kyou and the others had gathered all the other large men, and immeaditely began stacking medium-set men on top of them. "I think we should get married."

"There's some more over there, Kyou," she said normally, not even pausing. "See that guy with th-... WHAT?"

Shin laughed; her reactions were still as poor as ever. "I said I think we should get married."

"You... you... this is hardly the place!" she burst.

"Why not? Feelings don't change depending on where you are. Now is as good as anywhere, isn't it? I _love_ you, I've loved you for ten years, I want spend the rest of my life with you... _etcetera_," he explained coolly. Yankumi had turned a charming red, and the rest of the men pretended to be carrying on oblivious, except they were simply stacking and unstacking the same man over and over. _And _they were all looking at them both.

"I... I..." she stammered, and Shin reached out for her hand.

"Yankumi... I mean, Kumiko," he said, now slightly on edge as the reality of what he had just done caught up with him. "Will you marry me? Even though," he added humorously, "I'm a Yakuza."

She stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing. "And whose fault was that?" she hooted. "Of course I will!" Launching herself at him in a running hug, she quite forgot that he was barely strong enough to keep _himself _up, let alone her too, and they both went crashing to the floor.

Shin groaned as she slammed down her weight over an already cracked rip, and then with a pained laugh took her face in his hands and kissed her. "You're a nightmare," he wheezed.

"_You _love me," she pointed out, kissing him back gleefully: she was going to get _married._

"I do," he confessed with a grin. "In front of all these people, I love you." He glanced to the side and settled on the growing pile of unconscious gangsters, which had now resumed growing. She chuckled, not missing his humour, and got back up on her feet, outstretching an arm to Shin to help him up too.

"Me too," she said sweetly, quiet enough that only he had the privilege of hearing her. "Chop chop, boys!" she squawked deafeningly with the next heartbeat. "There's at least thirty more to get in this pyramid before we can go!" Shin rolled his eyes, then glanced at the woman he was going to marry; he looked over at her family, down at himself, and then he got to work.

* * *

As they say, th-th-t-t-t-th-th-that's all, folks!

There's a _lot _of time progression in this chapter, but I really wanted to get the right kind of age for Shin instead of forcing it all on him too young. This sort of stuff takes time.

I know I'm going to get some questions about other stuff I'm going to be doing, so here's a little lowdown on what I've got planned for the Gokusen fandom.

- I _really _want to rewrite chapters 1 and 2 of this fic, as they're the oldest and lack continuity, and I will also probably rewrite some of the newer chapters too, 3 and 4 at least.

- I also plan to write one proper lemon for Shin and Yankumi, which will be sort of in the universe of this story but I'll probably stylise it a little more. It'll probably be out before the 18th, depending on whether the manga finishes uploading before then (for inspiration you see).

That's it as far as the rest of this year goes, as when I'm back for the summer I've got a**_ BIG _**story planned for the Final Fantasy XII fandom.

Leave a little love for Shinkumi ;) Or if there's any loose ends you think I forgot about.


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